Portents of winter and the toothless chatter of flag-draped traitors vies with a fog of lies spread by Koch Brother messenger boys, Reagan nostalgia hucksters, suck-ups in office, Murdoch empire servlings, Banker PR catamites, and Jesus terrorists to occupy the national mind-space with a narcotic Jell-O of half-formed wish fulfillment scams. The nation is hostage to a confederacy of racketeers. Banking. Big Pharma. The Higher Ed / Loan nexus. GMO agri-biz. Fast food. Mandatory motoring. You name it. What a disgrace we are, and the worst of us are the least to know that.

This winter will be the Occupy Movement’s Valley Forge. An uneasy quiet may settle across this land blanketed in frozen dishonesty while OWS goes to the ground. Wait until next summer when the Occupiers head for the nominating conventions. Chicago in 1968 was nothing compared to what might go down in Charlotte, NC (Democrats) and Tampa, FLA (Republicans) in 2012. These two giant, useless, political bucket shops need to be put out of business and something else has to take their place. Who will be the new breed of genuine patriots? It would be nice to suppose that something noble and intelligent might emerge from the current miasma, a reality-based third party. But history isn’t so reassuring.

I heard some rumors. Lawrence Kotlikoff at Boston University – the only economist in the USA with a coherent plan for banking, healthcare, tax, and entitlement reform – said on a podcast some weeks back that he was advising an un-named national figure who intends to mount a third party campaign. I didn’t have a clue who that might be.

Last week in Virginia a professional political back-stager, who had worked for the DNC during the Howard Dean days, told me that New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg was stealthily hiring Hillary Clinton’s old campaign staffers in seeming preparation for… something. Well, Bloomberg wouldn’t have to take anybody else’s money – and by “anybody” I mean especially the corporations because, you know, corporations are people, with free speech rights (and feelings!). It also happens that Bloomberg is neither a Republican or a Democrat, but a registered independent. Will he go to the ground, too, this winter like OWS, and wait for the public disgust to mount toward criticality? Hey, sometimes your country calls (for help!) and figures arise and they undertake what’s necessary, even against type. Abe Lincoln, in 1859, was a railroad lawyer – the horror!

I have no idea who else might be waiting in the background, someone tortured with disgust by the leveraged buy-out of the American common good, someone capable of articulating the terms of the convulsion we face in national life if we don’t start doing things differently. Surely in a population of 310 million you can find more than a few resolute personalities who refuse to just sit back and watch the sickening spectacle of inept vacillation.

Of course, the first order of business is to get corporate money out of politics. Are we capable of doing that? Can we legislate a redefinition of corporate “personhood?” After all, corporations have no allegiance whatsoever to the public interest, only to their shareholders and boards of directors. Who was the Supreme Court kidding when they proposed in 2010 that corporations have a personal stake in politics. Corporations are sociopaths. They need to be tasered!

The second order of business is to enforce the existing laws in money matters and bring back laws (e.g. the Glass-Steagall act) that were recklessly thrown away in the systematic bid to loot the working public; then move beyond that to contest the web of rackets that make it impossible for Americans to even take care of themselves.

The third order of business is to shut down the war industry and close hundreds of overseas military bases that are draining scarce public capital.

The fourth order of business is to prepare the US public for the realities of the post-Global economy and the post-cheap-energy way of life. Tell them the truth: we don’t have “a hundred years” of natural gas. We can’t drill-drill-drill our way to “energy independence.” We have to get more local, less complex, finer, and leaner. Give the American people a clear sense of where circumstances are taking us, even if it is a tough assignment.

More likely, nobody will step forward to take on the two major parties. In which case, plan now to occupy the political conventions. Google-map your routes to Tampa and Charlotte (Home of Bank of America!). Stake out the campsites and cheap lodgings. Prepare to shame these organized grifters, and to turn their self-serving jamborees upside-down.

About James Howard Kunstler

James Howard Kunstler is the author of many books including (non-fiction) The Geography of Nowhere, The City in Mind: Notes on the Urban Condition, Home from Nowhere, The Long Emergency, and Too Much Magic: Wishful Thinking, Technology and the Fate of the Nation. His novels include World Made By Hand, The Witch of Hebron, Maggie Darling — A Modern Romance, The Halloween Ball, an Embarrassment of Riches, and many others. He has published three novellas with Water Street Press: Manhattan Gothic, A Christmas Orphan, and The Flight of Mehetabel.

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James,
Another week, and the foundations appear to be shaking more severely, as the people appeal to the rule of law in an eleventh hour attempt to forestall the inevitable. But the laws we’ve promulgated for ourselves and for nature are at the center of this crisis. The trajectory has not changed significantly. So it is best for us to strap on our seatbelts, and prepare for impact. Whoever remains standing must be prepared to sort through the ruble and find their way forward. Best, kulturCritichttp://kulturcritic.wordpress.com/posts/shaking-the-foundations-beyond-the-rule-of-law/

Bloomberg has shown his true colors with OWS by saying that we can’t blame the banks for this economic mess. Great sound bite and a complete lie.
There is no politician that will lead the way. The people must wake up and lead, then the politicians will come running from behind. OWS is a great start. OWS has a lot more support than is shown in the media.

Valley Forge indeed: Those opposed to the OWS movement are counting on the cold weather to disband the group in NYC as winter sets in. In Charlotte, the protest marchers are fewer in number than five weeks ago, but the number of tents has greatly increased. There is something happening here, and what is ain’t exactly clear.

JHK writes:
“What a disgrace we are, and the worst of us are the least to know that.”
Unsurprising (in that we’ve seen the suppression of shame as a national modality), but truly sad and disheartening.
Soldier on, James, soldier on. Awareness may arrive in the worst of ways, but arrive it will…

Re “The nation is hostage to a confederacy of racketeers. Banking. Big Pharma. The Higher Ed / Loan nexus. GMO agri-biz. Fast food”
Ahhhh Jim…. you almost got there… almost nailed the BIG ONE…. but you just couldnt do it could you Jim?
Even though it’s staring you in the face – and getting ready to kick-off World War 3 – you just couldnt find it in yourself to name names could you Jim? You had to pathetically try to defelect attention & settle for weasel worlds like “Jesus terrorists” didnt you Jim?
Have you no shame?

Sign the petition at GetMoneyOut.com It is literally the least you can do.
In addition to the need for an honest leader who will speak the truth about the REALITY of resource scarcity, climate change and the long emergency, radical change is desperately required. Matt Taibbi has clearly and concisely articulated 5 demands the Occupiers need to focus on: 1. Break up the monopolies….There are about 20 such firms in America, and they need to be dismantled.
2. Pay for your own bailouts. A tax of 0.1 percent on all trades of stocks and bonds and a 0.01 percent tax on all trades of derivatives would generate enough revenue to pay us back for the bailouts, and still have plenty left over to fight the deficits the banks claim to be so worried about.
3. No public money for private lobbying. A company that receives a public bailout should not be allowed to use the taxpayer’s own money to lobby against him.
4. Tax the hedge-fund gamblers. For starters, we need an immediate repeal of the preposterous and indefensible carried-interest tax break.
5. Change the way bankers get paid. We need new laws preventing Wall Street executives from getting bonuses upfront for deals that might blow up in all of our faces later.
Realistically, I doubt any of these changes will be effected, but we must not give up.

Mandatory MotoringMandatory MotoringMandatory Motoring
Alas, the words I’ve been looking for! Thank you Jim! My great state’s motor vehicle code has quite the backasswordsness that doesn’t allow for ELECTRIC BICYCLES. I’m chasing politicians and complaining that I am forced to pay $3.50 per gallon to commute. I still ride regardless almost daily and simply talk my way out of tickets as best I can. After being at the TOY Store this weekend, I found out you can make your own Bike License Plates for the kids… But instead of Joe or Billy I’ll be making my own E-BIKE plate.
How about the TAR SANDS Protest yesterday? Any clusterfuckers attend? No mention of that Jim? It seams right up the Peak Oil alley and an historic event to say the least.
Off to the roof now…
PUSH ON. DO GOOD. KEEP SMILING.

NUYAWKFRANKIE writes: You had to pathetically try to defelect attention & settle for weasel worlds like “Jesus terrorists” didnt you Jim?
I consider the New Apostolic Reformation org, and others like it (along with their candidate fronts, such as Perry, Bachman, Palin), to be a danger to our society. They are Jesus Terrorists.
–JHK

“After all, corporations have no allegiance whatsoever to the public interest, only to their shareholders and boards of directors.”
Actually it is a myth that corporations care about their shareholders. Mostly they care about their officers. Sometimes some of their board members. The shareholders are by and large just objects to be fleeced. That is why debt trumps equity in bankruptcy proceedings.

I can’t help but think that had we elected Hillary we would not be in nearly this bad of a state right now. I do hope there is someone else out there but somehow I don’t think so. The republicans are scary and the democrats are incompetent. Where does that leave us? Too many questions. No answers.

I don’t think it possible at this point to legislate a change in the corporate personhood doctrine, given the line of Supreme Court cases establishing it — right up to Citizen’s United in 2010. I think a constitutional amendment would be required at this point. I agree that Glass-Steagall of 1933 (there were more than one Glass-Steagall Act) should be re-enacted. Oddly, and unfortunately, I think, the Laroushies seem to be the main ones pushing re-enactment of Glass-Steagall. Soldier on, Jim.
Phut.

Jim
Ahh I see you got up nice and cranky this AM, your wordsmithing is really up to par. Particularly loved the “suck-ups” part, so applicable to the national scene.
But I am a bit disappointed that no mention was made of the great Greek fiasco. The absolute horror expressed by all the “Western Democracies” to what? Why a democratic vote being offered to the people of Greece. The hypocritical outcry against the referendum proposed by poor old G. Papandreou was simply deliciously, viciously ironic. It just doesn’t get any better than that, the public acknowledgement that democracy simply won’t be tolerated. Mindboggling is the open disavowal by “Western Democracies” and shows that democracy is just one more PR campaign with about as much substance as the promises of the current resident of the White House. Jim, you missed a golden opportunity to practice your brand of vituperative wordsmithing, what a shame. Oh well, we can be certain that other outrageous events will occur in the near future in this Clusterfuck world.
So, as I have said before, I will pop up some popcorn and watch from the peanut gallery the unravelling clusterfuck in real time. With chagrin, horror, amusement, and a brewing terror as things spin out of control.
loveday

Jim: Again, stellar thoughts and effective expression on your part.
I’d only add that if the 1st order of business is accomplished – getting money out of the currently hijacked, “pay to play” system of representative government, the remaining reforms will follow.
In Denver, a school board race garnered in excess of a half million in contributions, many from out-of-state interests seeking to extract control of a public asset to serve private interests.

In addition to the 5 demands accredited to Matt Taibbi should be:
6. Anyone ehem, I mean corporation and therefore its’ executives that receives [b]public money[/b] a [i]bailout[/i] is therefore considered a public servant and therefore should be paid the same wage as a public servant with equal experience. For example the highest pay bracket of a gov’t worker
So, any executive of Behemoth Bank should receive about 100K per year. No stocks, no bonus no nuthin’.

I see Paul Krugman has a surprisingly good post about solar energy and fracking this morning. Should get some word out there.http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/07/opinion/krugman-here-comes-solar-energy.html?_r=1&adxnnl=1&ref=opinion&adxnnlx=1320676666-+baEF1bPWq7OhzPvwzZh1w
Of course, it would have been better if he had pointed out that solar needs to go hand-in-hand with conservation, as there’s no way solar energy will replace our fossil fuel use. But hey, he’s only got so much space, so I’ll cut him some slack. And as long as he was in partisan mode, I wish he’d pointed out that not only is the GOP dedicated to only ussing fossil fuels, they are also opposed to all forms of mass transportation.
And another related article: The Dark Side of the Green City:“Across that valley lies 1,000 square miles of low-density tract housing, where few signs of greening are evident. That’s no surprise, given the economic free fall of a region that had been wholly dependent on the homebuilding industry. Property values in parts of metro Phoenix have dropped by 80 percent, and some neighborhoods are close to being declared “beyond recovery.”” “In the Arizona Legislature, talk of global warming is verboten and Republican lawmakers can be heard arguing for the positive qualities of greenhouse gases. Most politicians are still praying for another housing boom on the urban fringe; they have no Plan B, least of all a low-carbon one. Mr. Gordon, a Democrat who took office in 2004, has risen to the challenge. But the vast inequalities of the metro area could blunt the impact of his sustainability plans.” http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/07/opinion/in-phoenix-the-dark-side-of-green.html
Cheers!

The mainstream media has shaped our discussion in the context of the beliefs and ideologies of the left and right. Shaping this duality into a workable compromise is the way to go. The reality is that the discussion was never based in reality.
Two wrongs don’t make a right. The occupy folks realize this ,but are finding it difficult to articulate the path which will take us beyond what must be left behind. Reality of existence is sustainable dynamic balance, anything that compromises is erroneous.

Moral Relativity
JHK,
Excellent post today! You have covered the gamut of issues we are facing in one fell swoop. I recommend anyone who didn’t catch JHK on Max Keiser yesterday to check it out.
Last night on 60 Minutes they interviewed Jack Abramoff, the poster child of rampant corruption during the Bush years who has served time in jail and has now written a book. Just a little aside, here. Is 60 Minutes now the PR book peddler company for those who have done wrong to sell their books?(last week it was the Madoff family).
Abramoff as one (victim) said so elegantly could “…talk a dog into getting off a meat truck.” A. a devout Orthodox Jew claims that he was so far into the system that he couldn’t tell right from wrong. Is that how it happened in Germany? The system is so rotten that you no longer see the forest from the trees?
Well the right wing Christianists know something’s wrong and attack moral relativity that they claim is the left wing moral compass. So they claim those who believe in social justice are godless. Crazy conclusion, alright. So they protect the guilty and their huge profits at the expense of all others and attack the very tenets of their religion. Who are they worshipping exactly? Their greatest passion is to end abortions (& birth control) and repudiate all the progress of the 20th century, but is there a right to life after birth?
A few years back I was very concerned that our popular culture seemed to embrace organized crime, starting with Mario Puzo’s The Godfather through “The Sopranos” They elevated Myer Lansky and Bugzy Siegel to Icon status. Usually when these thing take hold, you understand in your gut that this is the Zeitgeist of your time. Is this the culture we all unconsciously accepted?
On 8/22/10 I wrote:
The Myer Lansky Special: The US as Murder Inc.
The hero from WWII made an offer to the world that they couldn’t refuse: Pax Americana and has pushed full-spectrum dominance in areas of military and finance to the tune of non-ending wars and the dissolution of the middle class.
Listening to Gerald Celente interviewed by Max Keiser this morning made me think about what this country has become and it couldn’t be more depressing.
This country is being run by Public Enemies of the state and it’s citizenry. Madoff may have been one of the few to pay a price, but everyone from think tanks, academia, media, insurance, banks and heads of state are complicit in this disaster.
Our media does not connect the dots and when it does it disappears into the ether to be replaced by mindless propaganda that pushes hate to divide the 95% of the population to keep us from focusing on the real issues. Celente points out that even with the extreme weather conditions in the world this summer nobody is talking about Global warming or at least the massive pollution that is spewed into the environment for the sake of making money to the enth degree.
Note: Last week I was struck at how the PR for BP has absolutely insulted our intelligence! They have the nerve to tell us they are flying planes over the Gulf to look for oil slicks after they used Corexit to hide the oil at the bottom of the gulf. Wow!! There was a great site that spoke about Corexit being used recently at night so nobody could see what they are doing. Hurray for Burson Marsteller, who are most likely behind the BP propaganda, though I can’t prove that yet. Just imagine that they are intricately involved in our politics.
This interview is one of the best I’ve heard from Celente and it covers the full gamut of what has gone completely out of control. His time-line for deep world wide depression by the way is similar to JHK.
He discusses everything from the illusion of hope to the insatiable need of those with multi-billionaires to make ever more money and how our interest rates are kept low for the speculators.
The elite have done so well with Iraq and Afgh. they know they can’t miss with more war…stay tuned for Iran…
In the vernacular of Sarah Palin: How’s that Paxi-Americani working for you?

When James K calls for closing down the war industry he is right to do so.
I write from Melbourne Australia, and
in just two weeks Obama will be here on a brief visit and we’re told that he is anxious to increase the US use of bases here and perhaps build new one
The rise of China is cited as the reason for this new defence commitment,though how bases in Australia could help the defence of the USA is not explained
Our PM,Gillard is an admirer of Obama and will agree to whatever he wants..though it will cost him!
Lucky the USA is so rich !

No one will save us, we must save ourselves, with new ideas. I think RON PAUL offers some new ideas: end the wars, shrink government, stop printing money, end the drug wars, etc. At least he is talking about these ideas while the others Talk the Same Old Trash.
That is why the mainstream media ignores him: be IS. Speaking some truth to ignorance. I don’t agree with all of his ideas, but it is a start. Peace all.

“That is why debt trumps equity in bankruptcy proceedings.”
Not really. Bondholders (those holding debt) have been promised a specified percentage of return along with the return their initial loan. Share holders are promised….nothing. Thats the deal. No likey, no play.

Wrapping up last week…
CF: YES! I think we’d have a whole lot more skinny vegetarians running (moping) around if people had to be responsible for their own meat! Conversely, I think a lot of existing vegetarians would convert if they saw some of the best pastured production systems in operation, and the alternative to the CAFO death camps (in fact that does happen regularly). So maybe a wash.
Anti: I like that, just ‘Anti’. Meds now “outkill” autos in the US. Isn’t that something? Medicine kills more people than the 40,000 Americans killed by autos every year. I thought meds were supposed to help people? And I get a hard time about my vaccination policy…please people, wake up, the problem is systemic. Stop trying to cherry-pick the “good” things industrial culture has done for us from the rubble. There are vanishingly few. Maybe refrigeration?
IX: Re: mob-grazing, if you think I’m that stupid why do you read my blog? Oh gosh, no, we never considered any of that other stuff you brought up. We’re just a bunch of addle-brained bimbos throwing a hippie party. How much fun!

James,
It looks like you’re reiterating the platform you outlined in “My Tea Party” from July of 2010, minus the restrictions on immigration. While that will likely displease your more racist readers, it makes me happy. Remember that I told you that the Coffee Party would get on board with most everything else you proposed, but especially everything having to do with what we call “The Cycle of Corruption,” which is explicitly about your first two items of business and implicitly about the rest, as it prevents acting on them in the name of the fossil-fueled status quo. I’m one of the people with access to our Blog Talk Radio channel. I’ll ask the rest of the leaders to see if they think it’s a good idea to contact your agent to see if I can interview you as part of promoting your Kunstler Cast book.
Speaking of the Coffee Party, we had a rally in Washington on the 29th, where hundreds of people came out in the driving freezing rain to listen to people who said “Enough is Enough” to our corrupted political system, one of whom happens to be the only major party candidate who is stepping forward with an anti-corruption, pro-Occupy Movement message as part of his campaign. The candidate is Buddy Roemer, former governor of Louisiana, who is ruhning for the Republican nomination. He’s worth checking out.
As for the major national figure contemplating a third-party run, it’s most likely Bloomberg, in which case, you can forget him doing what you are asking for. He’s a socially liberal plutocrat, but a plutocrat nonetheless.
During the past two weeks, I blogged not only about the Coffee Party and the Occupy Movement, but also about the world reaching 7 billion population, Paul Krugman being parodied in The Onion, and the foreclosure crisis. Right now, the top entry on Crazy Eddie’s Motie News is about how the miles driven by American when adjusted for driving-age population, peaked in 2006 and are still falling. Looks like the days of Happy Motoring have been coming to a close for five years now. Peak driving, anyone?http://crazyeddiethemotie.blogspot.com/

I can understand that Kunstler likes to pin his hopes on any movement in US politics that claims to seek to challenge the status quo.
Thus he had hopes for Obama, even though there was little sign that Obama either comprehended or had any intention of seeking to deal with the greatest problems our nation faces: peak oil, population growth, and massive indebtedness.
(his latest economic proposal involves levying a new tax on the rich and immediately spending 10 years of the revenue on spending for his political friends. I witnessed this sort of Governmental Enronomics as a resident of California (fortunately, I have managed to escape that ineptly governed hellhole).
Now Kunstler pins his hopes on OWS, which does at least know that something is very wrong in this society, but has very little comprehension of what it is, and to the extent that it has any agenda, appears to be desirious of “doubling down” on government spending, accelerating the death spiral of government indebtedness.
He will be similarly dissilusioned with OWS as he was with Obama. In the case of OWS, however, it is really rather ludicrous to harbor any hope even at the outset that it will lead to anything positive. At least Obama did have some knowledge of public policy issues, something the vast majority of the OWS protesters do not.

“Who will be the new breed of genuine patriots? It would be nice to suppose that something noble and intelligent might emerge from the current miasma, a reality-based third party.”
Yes, perhaps someone like YOU, James. At the very least, with your wordcrafting expertise you should become a speechwriter for any other candidate who shows signs of intelligence and a good grasp of the current realities. (Ron Paul?)

As always, a bittersweet pleasure starting off the week with a dose of Kunstlerisms.
from this perch in the forest of a third world country, I can’t help but noticing how much angst appears to be somewhat self-referential, associated with the ongoing and inevitable decline of a country which pigged out for too long at the global trough and is now suffering many of the chronic debilitating diseases associated with a generation or so of gluttony.
The magical thinking, happy-faced future based on genetically engineered algae based bio-diesel or solar and wind deployed as ‘fast and furious’ as weapons into Mexico is just as likely to devolve into any of the various regional ‘fracking’ scenarios portrayed in The Long Emergency.
Having lived for a couple decades in a ‘backward’ agricultural area of Costa Rica, I get daily insights into the resilience of my neighbors and am left shaking my head at the woeful inadequacy of “Americans”–and residents of other developed countries–to retool their lives, their societies and their expectations to the long emergency which is enveloping them, chapter by riveting chapter.
When Richard Heinberg suggested that the response to the ongoing tumult was to start an eco-village, I, for one, took the ball and ran with it. http://www.puebloverde.org

Thanks P. Krugman. We in Pennsylvania are becoming the sacrifice for the nation. FRACKING is as common in my Western PA area as McDonalds and WALMART. Farmers are losing their water and farms but collecting big lease checks and leaving their neighbors holding the bag. The gas companies,the Dept of Evironmental Protection, and Penn State University are blessing the Marcellus Gas Industry as if it were the second coming. Even though the bromide/brine levels are destroying our public water sources eg. the Allegheny River/Monongahela Rivers, the industry says…….don’t worry be happy. Our Republican Governor, Tom Corbett, who took millions of campaign dollars from the industry is running around the State with his group of money bags saying that we are the Saudi Arabia of the gas industry. Out townships are being over run by gas company lawyers turning over zoning. Wells are being drilled in housing plans, school campuses, dairy farm corn fields and soon in all the State Game Lands and Parks.
Of course, in 2005 VP Cheney/Haliburton was behind the secret potion of chemicals used for fracking being exempt from the clean air and water act. How soon will it be until the residents of Pennsylvania will be the CANCER poster children of the world…………

In Australia the debate about “fracking” and it’s damage to the earth itself is just starting.
The politicians are runniong scared,and the gas industry is all a cashed up…but there is a growing public alarm and our growing Green party is taking a leading role in the opposition..with 9 Senators in the Federal senate and members in most state legislatures the Greens are a coming force
Americans could do with such a group

Well Jim, how ’bout you run!…. I’ll vote many x’s!
I’ve been asking people who should/could be a prez candidate, but there’s no clear frontrunner, let alone even some names….uggggg…
btw people, those here who are promoting Ron Paul, would do well to look up an expose on him which was published on commondreams.org sometime in the last month or so…..
He really is kind of an idiot (& his son is worse…). He may agree with progressives on a few issues, but it ends there. Why do we always have to settle for someone? And Bloomberg is no real friend of the 99%.
So who do we write in???… Maybe I’ll go with Wavy Gravy!

A really sad but true opening paragraph. Has doing what’s right for the Country become a thing of the past ? No matter which party takes power, doing what’s right gets left behind once the votes are counted. It will be interesting to see who might step forward with another party. While there are many parties out there fielding candidates, only 2 get the nod when it comes down to who we can vote for. The rest are passed off as either irrelative or moonbat fringe. IF there was any sense of true democracy all parties would be treated equally and we would have serious dialogue on the issues the nation/republic faces. And out of this the best proposel would be selected for implementation. Dream on….kiddies special interest’s rule. Change is needed and long overdue. However open rebellion via O W S will be dealt with harshly as per laws we might be fully aware of till they spring forth.
It’s been said that the O W S movement if waiting for and seeking their “Kent State” moment. Be careful what you wish for ! Bloodshed and rioting is not the answer to anything ! What needs fixing has to be done within the legal framework. Violence just plays to the ruling party’s favour and the reforms never happen. All a riotous O W S will do is give nobama another excuse not to fix the problems. Can’t fix what’s broke with all these damn rioters in the way. RIIIIGHT ?
What’s happening today is like it’s all falling out of the most destructive playbook ever written. NONE DARE CALL IT CONSPIRACY BY GARY ALLEN 1972 ! READ IT AND COMPARE WHERE WE’RE AT AND WHAT WAS WRITTEN SO LONG AGO. Once you read it and understand it you will see that it was never a conspiracy…. it was a bold plan and it just might come to pass.
Another happy fuck’n Monday ! See you next for some more good news. In the mean time Stay Frosty and stock up.

James,
You articulate and seem to know and understand many of the issues better than most. I think you should consider some kind of a political move in a bid to end the US corporate plantation and its thieving lords.
Some others to add to your list of ‘confederacy of racketeers’ would include the whole list of US federal government agencies, from the CIA, to Homeland Security, Department of Agriculture, Department of Education, the IRS, and so on.
Also, very important, the FED and the big banks and the primary dealers, the MSM propaganda outlets, the corporate sponsored “NGO” propaganda groups, the Courts, the Church/Vatican. They are all part of this web.
The system needs to be completely repudiated. At the global center of it all is the Vatican and Central Banks which they own and control. Simply put, what you’re seeing a push back against the Enlightenment by the old Roman Reich. Only now they don’t call it the Roman Reich, now they call it the NEW WORLD ORDER. And the US is an integral part of that global Vatican fascist scheme.

I loved that first paragraph this morning. But like another reader, I was a little surprised not see any mention of the European debt/Greek default(?) issue. Oh well — so much to comment on, so few pixels (and time)!
As a nation, we ARE a disgrace. But I know so many conscientious people doing good work — trying desperately to undo or make up for the mess made by those in power — we should try to keep them in mind. They, too, are American citizens. My wife does grueling work in an inner-city hospital, then spends several more hours every week helping to manage a free clinic in our town.
Anyway, we can camp out in the public squares as long as we like. I fear that the whole rotten, stinking body called Congress, and their richest, most selfish corporate masters, will NEVER give more than a symbolic inch to righting what is wrong. I am terrified that it will only take torches and pitchforks and the guillotine — a bloody, ugly mess.

Money makes the world go around
The world go around
The world go around
Money makes the world go around
It makes the world go ’round.
Money,money,money,money,money……
OCCUPY THE SUPREME COURT,
OVERTURN CITIZENS UNITED!

JK,
great essay this week. The opening is perhaps a little too wordy. But otherwise your prose hammers home the frustrating nature of living in country filled by idiots listening to the shilling of oh so many other more powerful idiots leading us to disaster.
Our “world leaders” continue their fantasies of installing “systemic to-big-to-fail banking fiefdoms” at the G20 summit. The new oracle that guides the markets of the world is the “FSB” – and it only works for banksters.
Throw out all the other science fiction. It was November, 2011 when the new world order was defined.
Long live GS! Long live BOA. God save JPM and Morgan Stanley. Bless us oh banksters for we have sinned – let us pray for your complete indulgence.

man, people, stop whining interminably about things you cannot change (without killing your sanity/health etc) and change what you can, viz. make your house smaller, greener, with indoor/outdoor gardening.
i guarantee you’ll feel more satisfied.
and shut your phuqqing tv’s off. ‘back to the land’, whether literally or to the extent you can wherever you happen to live, is great for your peace of mind.
am planting another 1,000 gladiolus down here in brazil, warm weather year round sure helps lol
tune in, turn on and drop out, within reason and ability…
peace peaceniks

The third order of business is to shut down the war industry and close hundreds of overseas military bases that are draining scarce public capital.

Amen to that, brother Jim.
And while we’re at it, we ought to remove “In God We Trust” from all USA currency. It is obvious what we trust is an $671 Billion dollar defense budget (that is what Obama has requested).
We ought to take away Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize, too.

My only disagreement with JHK is that we may have enough natural gas to use as a transition fuel to a post-oil world. We should not be squandering it to extract and refine dirty non-conventional oil.
It’s like using fine wine to make cheap vinegar.
But whatever the gas question, JHK’s right that 2012 will be one of those years to remember. I wonder if that unnamed figure might be Colin Powell? He was the only sane voice as Darth Cheney and his evil Jedi, W wrecked the nation.

“Of course, in 2005 VP Cheney/Haliburton was behind the secret potion of chemicals used for fracking being exempt from the clean air and water act. How soon will it be until the residents of Pennsylvania will be the CANCER poster children of the world….”
Yep, I think we understand that this rapacious craziness will continue until somebody makes it too expensive to operate the extractive scam. You know exactly what I’m talking about, don’t you?
…And, of course, that ain’t gonna happen until somebody’s kids get snuffed by the resultant cancers, like you mention. I don’t think corporate greed-heads properly appreciate the reality of revenge…. until it bites ‘em right in the ass, prior to the devouring.

In the 1960s the head of General Motors could say, with some justification, that what was good for GM was good for America. The market and the growth was right here: if GM was to prosper they had to help make sure that the people here could buy their stuff. But not now.
Now all the growth markets are elsewhere. What idiot would invest their money here? Every dollar that given to the wealthy, via tax breaks or whatever, is just money that flows out of the country, lost. What does help is anything that gets to people who actually spend money here, things like unemployment and food stamps. This money is spent here and circulates.
But money is power. The more money little people have, the more their power, the more potential to thwart the few and the wealthy. The wealthy, who control all things, are not about to let this happen.

The mote in another person’s eye. To JHK raised on tales of terror by christians aimed at his people, mostly true by the way and now the Middle East raised on tales of terror commited by people JHK finds common cause.
So is Iran the incubator of the next Hitler or not? So them “jesus terrorists” will find common cause with those on the West Bank who’s yaweh genocide is pre-ordained and sponsored by Raytheon and IMI (Israeli Military Industries).
I have no answers. But one thing must happen, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS MUST DIE all the myths of the 20th century must go and I mean everyone of them, even the ones that will get you arrested in Europe if you challenge them.

Jim,
Great weekly commentary. We have discussed a third party, and how important the 2012 election is to get reality before the voters. It is obvious that neither the Democrats nor Republicans are capable of doing that. To be really effective, a third party has to be more than a presidential run. It needs strong grass roots, and that means senatorial and congressional races. It should also include gubernatorial candidates as well. If our future is going to be more local, we need people at the state level who can put together ideas and programs. Real change is from the bottom up, not the top down. If nothing else the OWS and other like movements across the country have brought people of different backgrouns together in a common cause. We need to build on that. Viva the 99%!
Steve Knox

“What needs fixing has to be done within the legal framework. Violence just plays to the ruling party’s favour and the reforms never happen.” -GG5
Sez you.
Others opinions may vary. ;o)
(I agree on staying frosty and stocking up; always a good notion, thanks.)

found a copy in an old box of books when i moved in back in the 90s…pissed off, scared, and perplexed about how something so obvious in hindsight could be perpetrated…and have not met since anyone who d heard of it glad at least i aint the only one…

To SmokeyJoe:
Colin Powell lied to the world in his speech to the UN that led to the invasion of Iraq on false pretenses. His early military career included whitewashing the My Lai massacre.
He may deserve a few brownie points for whatever candor he showed after being a useful tool of Bush-Cheney, but to look to the man as a political savior-figure is utter folly.

I don’t fault JHK for mentioning Bloomberg, even if it is grasping at straws and no answer, since he can’t be bought because he is already a plutocrat. Bloomberg did show his true colors in his reaction to Oakland OWS closing the port, even briefly, since any hint of Euro-style general strikes scares the eleites; he also showed his truly banal style of evil in the speech reported by Matt Tiabbi. BTW, Bllomberg news is just the financial news option for the elites vs. CNBC for the boobs. More content, same moral vacuums and false paradigms.
I’m sure JHK will address the greece-farce soon. Looking forward to it.
Two points really struck me from Max-JHK show: 1) parallels to 1950’s in current decrepit Dem-Rep ineptitude and endemic corruption; 2) Effect of OWS movement on 2012 conventions. Civil unrest while pending Iran WW3 scenario plays out could make 2012 a turning point, not for the better.
I was musing this weekend about another historical comparison–the early 20th century trust busting by TR et al of industrial trusts vs. the unchallenged ascendency of even more damaging financial trusts, looting on a post-industrial scale with only ineffectual griping by the 99% while the same anti-trust laws are still on the books but not being enforced. How far we have fallen in 100 years!
How can any ‘civilization” survive without the rule of law?
Aside from massive propaganda from MSM, I sometimes wonder if the subversion of the elites to eradicate any element of fairness and morality can be directly linked to the (planned) transformation of all professions into corporate-fascist modeled “businesses) (law, medicine, academia etc.).

Jim,
I agree that Bloomberg is less than ideal. He does seem to be the best hope of the current lot if only in that he can be somewhat of a populist when pushed enough. His commitment to certain things sustainable in NYC are a positive predictor of possibilities (Janette Sadik-Khan at NYCDOT for one).
Your first paragraph defines clearly all the obstacles blocking effective response to our problems. Or I should say our choice of responses under perceived (aka distorted) ideas of what Democratic choice means in 2011 – notwithstanding corporate person hood and it’s contrivances.
As luck would have it, I am hosting an event in Easton, Pa on Nov 18-19 that is our best chance to reframe the battle against these forces; solutions outside the confines of “well settled law” and other judicial nonsense that lead to the corporatocracy we accept as normal.
The Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (CELDF) teaches a two-day Democracy School that strips away 150 years of law and lure we’ve been conditioned to believe. Getting outside the framework of the OSHAs, EPAs, SECs and other alphabet soup organizations allows us to focus on the real question: should we accept a regulated rate of destruction by the legal fictions called corporate entities?
Should we be happy being killed more slowly at pre-determined rates by toxins, abusive work policies and ecological destruction based on the mandates of these agencies or should we simply ban these corporate activities – both by making their practices illegal and by further defining the issue by failing to recognize corporations as persons under the law – at the local level? The Home Rule Charter form of government is the first step toward achieving local self-governance, which Easton passed four years ago. It allows municipalities to write their own local Constitutions.
This is what will be discussed by twenty leading citizen activists and city administrators at the Easton event this month. Jim, I spoke to Duncan about CELDF’s Dem. School at the after-party in Buffalo during last month’s National Trust Conference. He is more than welcome to cover it for the podcast. You have an open invitation as well if your schedule allows. CELDF’s website states the following goal;
“Helping community groups and municipalities write and adopt laws that assert community rights, including the right to local self-government, the rights of nature, and the subordination of corporate privilege to the rights of the community.”
It is a given – and also stated at the CELDF website – that there can not be any hope of creating sustainable communities for a difficult future without establishing local self-governance. As a classic example of what is needed today, CELDF uses the difference between regulatory coercion and constitutional change. The abolitionist movement never lobbied for better treatment of slaves; not better food or housing or work hours. They simply rejected outright the idea of human beings as private property.
Jim, this is the route we must take today in fighting corporate person hood and property rights if we are to preserve and resurrect all the things you have described that have been lost in our suburban wasteland these many past decades.

NONE DARE CALL IT TREASON was being sold in the 1960s in all the local stores I visited. The author, John Stormer, did not blame the usual suspects right-wing/conservatives/WASPs like to blame: Catholics, Jews, and the like; Stormer blamed communist sympathizers. The commies!
Since the USSR no longer exists, and Vietnam and “Red China” are our trading partners, the “commie threat” is non-existent and Stormer’s book is irrelevant now.

Here’s a concise description of Powell’s role in covering up My Lai and similar massacres of civilians:
“As an Army officer, Powell’s superiors considered him a consummate “team player.” They could count on Powell to haul their water despite any contradictory feelings he may have had. Powell’s blind loyalty was demonstrated during a second tour in Vietnam (1968-1969), where as deputy assistant chief of staff for operations G-3 at Americal Division headquarters in Chu Lai, he was asked to handle a potentially embarrassing letter a young soldier had written to Gen. Creighton Abrams, commander of all U.S. forces in Vietnam.
The soldier had written about rumors of a massacre that Americal Division soldiers had committed in the hamlet of My Lai 4 in South Vietnam. Although he did not mention My Lai in the letter, the soldier complained that Americal soldiers were indiscriminately killing Vietnamese civilians. Such acts, the young soldier warned, “are carried on at entire unit levels and thereby acquire the aspect of sanctioned policy.”
Several days after he received a copy of the letter, Powell sent a memo to his superior, the adjutant general, making the outrageous claim that the young soldier had not given enough specifics upon which to base an inquiry. The purposely blind Powell said the soldier’s charges were false except for “isolated instances.” He wrote that “relations between American soldiers and the Vietnamese are excellent.” Powell’s damage control efforts soon proved fruitless and the My Lai massacre burst onto the world stage like an atomic explosion, severely damaging the U.S. war effort in Vietnam. On the orders of Lt. William Calley, soldiers from the U.S. Army Americal Division had indeed indiscriminantly gunned down an entire village of men, women and children.
Although Powell’s attempt to cover up the massacre was unsuccessful, he had at least proven his willingness to do what was necessary to please his bosses.”
Found at http://www.usvetdsp.com/story13.htm (I don’t necessarily subscribe to the apparent agenda of this web site.)

“Having lived for a couple decades in a ‘backward’ agricultural area of Costa Rica, I get daily insights into the resilience of my neighbors and am left shaking my head at the woeful inadequacy of “Americans”–and residents of other developed countries–to retool their lives, their societies and their expectations to the long emergency which is enveloping them, chapter by riveting chapter.”
I just came back from Oaxaca, Mexico, and I came to the same conclusions about the residents there as you have about the Costa Ricans and about our fellow Americans. They’re better prepared for the local future than we are and can adapt more easily, as they are more resourceful and haven’t lost their survival skills, while we have gone soft and become ignorant about our pre-industrial past.
As for your eco-village, I’ll check it out.

Jim,
Long time reader of your’s ( Long Emergency got me hooked). Hate to be picky, but Lawrence Kotikoff really is LAURENCE KOTIKOFF… I am sensitive because I have the same problem with my middle name. Thanks for spending the time you do to keep us all aware and pissed off.

Forget about a “savior” emerging. Won’t happen. If such a person were to arise, he/she would be suicided post haste. Too many people would lose too much. Our salvation will be the collapse, unfortunately. If we were a saner, more rational, more considerate species then a different outcome might be possible. But, then, if that were the case, we probably wouldn’t be in the pickle we currently are in.
Regarding Bernie Madoff – I see him as an angel of G-d. If you carefully analyze Madoff’s actions you realize he is really similar to a Dr. Emil Bronner only under a different guise. Madoff swindled those who were secret swindelers themselves. He offered impossibly good returns to people who mostly should have known better. All the while he was “feeding” them their interest from their own pool of capital. What a hoot! A sort of financial Hannibal Lecter, feeding them their own brains! What a perfect scenario! And he knew he would ultimately be caught. So why did he do it? I view Madoff’s actions as a position statement: his clients deserved no better. Incidentally, Picasso held his later clients in the same abject contempt. We should thank Madoff, in my opinion. He is paying the price for exposing the rot.

As for any successful Third Party “messiah”, unfortunately U.S. history has succinctly exhibited the rewards its society reserves for individuals with truly progressive postulations. Fictitiously think Warren Beatty’s “Bulworth”

Let me deal first, as is my custom, with form before substance.
FORM:
Jim said: It also happens that Bloomberg is neither a Republican or a Democrat
Although it is considered old fashioned, I much prefer nor rather than or in a neither/nor type sentence. It makes the point so much more strongly.Who was the Supreme Court kidding when they proposed in 2010 that corporations have a personal stake in politics.
Was it by accident or on purpose that Jim ended this question with a period rather than a question mark? His question was entirely rhetorical so perhaps it should be treated as a statement ending with a period. Interesting … I have never thought about this before. This bears further research.
SUBSTANCEChicago in 1968 was nothing compared to what might go down in Charlotte, NC (Democrats) and Tampa, FLA (Republicans) in 2012.
I can hardly believe it … it’s been 42 years. For those too young to remember the ’68 conventions I recommend Miami and the Siege of Chicago by Norman Mailer. Not long before I had spent a couple of months as a member of an audit team in Chicago and we stayed at a hotel/motel (I forget its name) directly across the street from the huge (732 room, I believe it was) Conrad Hilton Hotel. The bar and lounge was at ground level looking out on Michigan Ave. Mailer’s description of a man being hurled through the plate glass of this lounge where I’d spent many an evening trying to “get lucky” brought home to me the violence that went down in Chicago that summer. But beyond this reminiscence, I just don’t see the potential for violence in venues like Tampa and Charlotte vs the much larger and more volatile cities of Miami and Chicago. I’ve spent time in all four places and have some feel for their dynamic. But who knows, I didn’t see the OWS movement lasting beyond the World Series.After all, corporations have no allegiance whatsoever to the public interest, only to their shareholders and boards of directors.
I am extremely wary of what is termed “the public interest.” Invariably it turns out to be someone else’s idea of what is good for me than my own idea.
Many people, in my view, have a badly distorted and dangerous view of “freedom.” They are very much against both flesh-and-blood persons and so-called corporate persons being free to act on their own behalf rather than for the public interest (reference discussion yesterday with Bustin J). As much as I dislike her ham-handed writing style, this issue was at the heart of all Ayn Rand’s writings. Are we or are we not free to be selfish?

But your perception of where this will lead is certainly no more valid than mine, yet I don’t attack you for your ideas, do I?
—————————————–
Couple of things here Tripp,
“you” and your “ideas” are not one and the same, (at least the the basis I operate from) so questioning (not attacking) your ideas isn’t personal,IMO. Questioning, BTW, is sort of what this blog is all about isn’t it? At least it would be damned boring without it. Otherwise, it’s just a place to make extravagent pronouncments without any possible response.
Second, I think my view is that a wide range of economic/social/environmental outcomes are possible (some good, some not), similar to the way life usually unfolds. You seem to be quite sure a narrow outcome is assured, so that is quite different I think, and justifies a greater degree of scrutiny. Keep in mind, I’ve even said your POV has merit, and is a possible outcome.
The “what does that sound like….?” comment was of course, alluding to the way that views which are held that are not subject to qenuine questioning are similar to religion. That would be true whether you were holding those views about PO, religion, or the infallible varacity of scientific materialism.
So, don’t take it personally, and feel free to question my ideas anytime you want. I’m doing my best to question my own views as often as possible, and I’m not interested in being, or being characterized as, a member of either polar extreme. IMO, both science, and what is now called meta-physics (or religion) both have value, when not carried to the logical extremes people seem to naturally and unfortunately want to go.

Are we or are we not free to be selfish?
——————-
You most certainly are free to be selfish in your personal life, but not when the public interest is involved. Selfishly eat both your cereal and your wife’s cereal if you want, but don’t tear up the street in front of your house because the color of the pavement offends you. That would be against public interest. Capish?

There is no knight in shining armor who will come to save the system. What we’ve got – this whole unworkable load of bullshit is unreformable. It’s rotten to the core and it pervades every level. The only solution is to let it collapse. And it will not be pretty. Only then will something better be able to take its place.
Mike Hunt

Hi Helen
Great “gotcha” question, but I will try to give an answer. Mainly the reason I am not out on the streets is because in between rubbernecking our world disaster, now in progress, and downing the popcorn, I am doing my bit to prepare for likely outcomes. That means watching the world situation closely is part of that effort. My family has moved to a much smaller abode, we consume much less than we did in the past, we have paid attention to our finances and have made good progress, we have garden plans for spring in the works, etc… In short I am taking care of my business. Good enough for you? If not oh well.
Also, I feel the big cities and large crowds are not a smart place to be at this time. While I admire the OWS folks and applaud their efforts, I think the national situation is a big powder keg ready to blow. I don’t want to be in the middle when it does. Things will collapse and go to hell just the same, regardless, if I am in the middle of all the action or not.
Besides, the OWS folks seem oblivious of some current events that have much more serious consequences than our very serious financial pickle. What can they be? Well how about the ongoing nuclear disaster at Fukushima, that has recently been reported to have resumed criticality in reactor 2. This “nuclear volcano” is spewing out murderous radiation on a daily basis. It might be nice if someone in authority addressed this situation and organized an effective response to minimize the world irradiation. TEPCO and Japan’s response has so far bordered on criminally incompetent/insane. That’s just one example, I won’t drone on too much.
So, everyone is doing what they feel is important for them. Determining what is important in these crazy times is quite difficult. I muddle along as best I can and try to tend to my business. Besides:) I like popcorn.
have a great day!

A Lie. Gary Allen blamed the Bankers and the nascent New World Order. The Communists are their dupes. No? Then who funded them? It takes alot of money to overthrow nations – peasants armed with pitchforks don’t get anywhere.
Mr Allen, like the John Birch Society as a whole, always bent over backwards not to point out that the Bankers are largely Jewish, although there is obviously a powerful Gentile contingent in other areas of the NWO. Was this discretion appreciated? No, Mr Kunstler called them a bunch of Nazis. Unbelievable.

“When Richard Heinberg suggested that the response to the ongoing tumult was to start an eco-village, I, for one, took the ball and ran with it. http://www.puebloverde.org”
You are brave and brilliant for doing so, too.
My wife and I will be heading for the mountains of North Georgia on Wednesday to look for a plot on which to build our final home. Been practicing permaculture for 3 years, but just recently got re-energized about natural building techniques. We are really excited about hand-sculpting a cob cottage on a couple of acres, and maybe picking up a few surrounding plots to hold for like-minded folks as they come along.
We need community, and I hope we still have enough time, here in the States, to get it worked out. But it’s a stretch. Best of luck to you.

Some of Madoff’s clients were just regular upper middle class people. Innocent? No one is – but certainly not guilty per se. Let’s call them naive.
You are correct about Picasso – a business man. A one man factory. Many of his pieces took a couple of minutes to create – and it shows. But people want to be known as being great connoseurs and are willing to pay top dollar for the privledge. They did deserve the crap they got and the contempt they earned.

“Only then will something better be able to take its place.”
Or, we could just go ahead and start extracting ourselves from the mainframe now, reap all the benefits of a simpler life ahead of schedule, and be a whole lot more prepared for any sudden jolt to the system. Luck will probably play a role in whether or not that is enough, but I’d rather take my chances adapting to a lower energy way of life while I still have the luxury of failure.

Since the USSR no longer exists, and Vietnam and “Red China” are our trading partners, the “commie threat” is non-existent and Stormer’s book is irrelevant now.
==============
The “commie threat” is non-existent because “the USSR,” Vietnam, and China are now raging capitalists.

Here’s an interesting question: if the public has to pay for public health insurance, should the public be forced to be healthy – even against their will? Ban smoking all together? Make people go walking or jogging? If a person doesn’t show up for the daily jerks, the neighborhood coordinator goes to their residence to inquire after their well being? If they refuse to participate, should a goon squad go in and drag them out and have them jog over to the hospital?
You see it’s quite a bit more complicated than you think. People are unequal in their committment to health. Why should the wise be compromised by the lazy and gluttonous?

“Selfishly eat both your cereal and your wife’s cereal if you want…”
Truth be told, the act of eating cereal is probably fundamentally unsustainable, and therefore selfish, in its own right. But that usually comes waaay later in the conversation! Carry on.

Tripp, congratulations on your moves to become independent.
A cob house is an excellent opportunity to build community. Invite everyone you know to help you.
Even kids can stomp the mud mix on a tarp, and anyone who can lift a fistful of mud in their hands can help in the building. We are helping a young couple who are building a cob house and friends have rallied around… kind of like an old-fashioned barn-raising. Great community building experiences.

Time to go hang out some laundry. Gave up the clothes drier 2 years ago, and my wife floored me the other day when she said she was ready to start using a wringer washer when we move to the mountains!! By the time we get there I’m not sure I’ll have to run any wiring or plumbing at all! What a ride this has been!

Are we or are we not free to be selfish?
==
You are not. Nor should you be.
What you have today is an absurd inversion, where a relatively small clique of people through illegitimate control of various institutions, are able to manipulate the whole structure of the State for their exclusive benefit and selfishness.
What you need in the US is a true democracy and a true awareness that would limit or eliminate altogether the monopolies, the gamed fraud, the propaganda theater, and other machinations put on by the fascist elite. A democratic consensus to eliminate all State institutions, including the central bank and central currency, as these are the source of subsidy and power for the fascist elite and their monopolies.

Tripp, you raise a valid point. Work is ongoing to establish methods for selecting varieties, lines and populations, and to develop ways to increase and make use of crop diversity and genotype-environment interactions to ensure stable and acceptable yields of good-quality crops for low-input, especially organic cereal production in Europe.
There is an increasing demand throughout Europe for sustainable crop production characterised by reduced inputs of pesticides and synthetic fertilizers (low-input cropping systems) and increased agricultural biodiversity.
Horticulture, it ain’t… but at least there is some awareness of what industrial agriculture is doing and how to mitigate consequences.

Too much “gist in the mill” to comment on this week. However, countrygirl got it right in that for the past century most meaningful change in North America at least has come from the bottom up rather than top down. Politicans or leaders carrying the ball only after the ground swell becomes too big to ignore. Having said that in this outpost of the Empire (Canada) There is a third party which is pushing for a quasi-change in the sense of more corporate taxes, social justice,environmental regulation etc. as adocated in moondog’s blog. How far this can and will go will be interesting to watch. The OWS movement is a “wedge” issue for them as some wish to endorse the OWS movements’ goals and others wish to pursue the more conventional political route which would result in smaller incremental changes. Either way for the first time in Canada’s history a “third party” is the offical opposition and could form government in the next election. This has not gone unnoticed as the corporate media has lauched assaults on them. The indication is that even the small quasi change they represent is a threat to the status quo. Remember Canada is to the U.S. what Poland was to the old Soviet Union; a semi independent state. (or Gaul to Rome if you like old historical anologies) And we all remember what the Polish Solidarity movement resulted in! In other words the forces of change be they OWS or even more conventional ones need to be prepared for a “push back” like they have not seen before.

Folks, I just got smacked in the face with some bizarre reality this morning while waiting for Jim’s column to post.
On a whim, I decided to type “American Spectator” into my browser to see what the conservative types were saying about the OWS movement.
The articles concerning OWS were negative to the point of hysteria. That was rather to be expected. But the comments from our brothers and sisters who make up the conservative portion of the 99% really floored me.
The vitriolic criticism expressed by these flag waving, status quo supporting, Republican party insider wannabes with 3 mortgages on their trailers was really acidic. They even referred to the folks out there fighting for THEIR best interests as “dirty, smelly hippies”!
It jarred me into a stark reality. The corruption in government we could deal with. The corporations could eventually be reigned in again. The elites could be made to see that even they cannot export our jobs at will when the workforce is united and organized.
But these evangelical NASCAR freaks living in the ’50s are another story! They actually see everything the OWS movement is trying to do as a communist plot against their beloved land of the free. THEY are the ones we’ll never convince of the truth, until we pry their guns from their cold, dead fingers.
And right now, those guns can’t wait to sight us in for disagreeing with their holy icons, the military-industrial-congressional complex.

Beyond the signs on sidewalks to concrete action.
Move your money – its the only language they understand. A mass move would pop these banks like the inflated gasbags they really are.
Stop buying Chinese crap, buy less crap overall and seek out durable American made goods to meet basic needs.
Start using more cash, silver and barter and less plastic – the 1% rake 3.5% off the top of every transaction – its a voluntary national sales tax.
Sign some of the many excellent Petitions at the new “We the People” page (Whitehouse.gov) and start one of your own.
Take GOD off our money and go back to the original motto (E Pluribus Unum). It was only changed in 1956 due to the Cold War/McCarthyite madness. Making money our GOD is the root of the problem, even Roosevelt thought it was sacreligious.

It’s probably safe to assume that the looming 2012 financial meltdown is probably going to be severe enough to make the 2008 meltdown look like a dress rehearsal in comparison. If so, it’s unlikely that the now familiar political rhythms will have even a notional resonance with that reality.
SISA Status Report No. 1: Perseverance brings Good Fortunehttp://www.Thesisa.org/

Form must follow subsance for as Paul said, the Spirit saves but the letter killeth.
Did you get lucky? Or just Pozo? Was it lucky for the lady too? Say it lucky several times – your consciousness will change since it’s a vulgar word. Fortune is so much more dignified and significant. Listen to O Fortuna for clarification.
We have the right to be selfish, but only up to a point. The Goverment must step in at some point if the people are irresponsible. That is not an arbitrary law but a Law of Nature. Some degree of paternalism is necessary to have a decent society. It can be minimized by personal responsibility. Say a elderly person can’t take care of themselves anymore – and they don’t have the money for private care. So they either get taken care of by their children or the State. Or would you rather they die on the street?

Zanrak,j
The value of Ron Paul is not in his electability but in his ability to introduce the memes of withdrawing our troops and reforming our private banking system to the masses of Republicans who might not otherwise give it much thought.
Of course he won’t win the nomination. His value is in rubbing the GOP’s face in the mess that they support.
This Democrat is registering Republican just to vote for Ron Paul. I urge you to do the same.

“I don’t think it possible at this point to legislate a change in the corporate personhood doctrine,..”
Why go to the trouble? You were made a “person” {corporation} when your parents applied for a birth certificate. When ever you receive communications in all CAPS and ignorantly respond to it {as if it were you} you are acting like it is you. Equity Law.
You should do what they are doing, move all your debts over to the strawman, let it crash and burn, and walk away with what remains of your wealth.
Never respond to or ask anything of Babylon, the rest of your natural born life.

Has your situation with the elderly couple turned sour?
I saw that book at the Conference, it looks great. Build you own hobbit house!
The Conference was inspiring but overwhelming. Between very general introductions and the hard brass details, there is very little. There is crying need for a Community College course based on Holmgren’s 12 Principles. A more serious College Course could be based on The Book and Mollison’s 12 or 24 principles. Each principle could be fleshed out by examples and case studies. Both types of course could also benefit from field trips.

Never respond to or ask anything of Babylon, the rest of your natural born life.
======================
And never use Babylon built roads. Never drink pure water made safe by Babylon. Never take waste to Babylon waste-treatment plants. Never use Babylon licensed air waves to listen to radio. Never use the Babylon-created internet… Whoops!

???????
Seriously??? JHK has never heard of the Green Party, formed in opposition to money-driven politicians?
Get corporate money out of politics? That’s a Green Party policy, and has been since its founding.
Stop war? Non-violence is one of the four key values, along with environmental wisdom, which every Green knows means stopping fossil fuel burning.
Bring back Glass Steagall? Actually, we need a complete overhaul of our monetary system, and a Tobin tax, just for starters, both part of the Green Party platform.
Someone has already stepped forward, and is starting to run a campaign, Jill Stein.http://www.jillstein.org/
Don’t diss the Greens! Of course, we’re a small party. That’s because we don’t have corporate backing. You can’t have it both ways.
In a country in which the Dems and Repubs compete to sell the government to the highest corporate bidder (and I’m quoting John McCain here), any party which doesn’t take corporate funds is destined to be small and struggling.
It would be much for helpful to join in and help with people power, not sit on the sidelines and snidely sneer at the struggle of non-corporate funded campaigns.

Has Jim then renounced the Democratic Party? If so, bout time. But since the Zionists control our banking, media and foreign policy, it doesn’t matter which Party gets in, even if it is a conventional Third Party. Vote Ron Paul – they hate him and there’s good reason for that; reasons that are good for us.

Great vocabulary words this week Jim, especially “catamites”, which means homosexual child prostitutes. I first read that word in “Island”, by Peter Benchly, author of “Jaws”, in reference to a surviving colony of English pirates culturally stuck in the 17th century, on a Caribbean Island, who were still attacking yachts.
The idiotic political polarization which obtains in this country is caused in part by our low voting turnout. Perhaps we need to require that everyone goes to the polls to vote as they are in Australia, the foreign country most like the United States according to a recent article in the New York Times. Of course the Republicans wouldn’t like that, because they benefit from lower turnout, which is why they are pushing for stricter regulations pertaining to photo I.D.s for voters in order to prevent “fraud”. For “fraud” substitute “poor people voting their economic self interest”.
People will be ready for radical change only after the current regime has collapsed. And by collapsed I mean an unambiguous global economic depression which has essentially flattened capitalism forcing urgent collective action in order to forestall massive starvation in the developed countries. As it stands right now there is still too much room for people to continue to inhabit their own little solipsistic bubbles of false egotistical optimism.

I’ve been thinking along the same lines. Why should the Churches have anything to do with State Marriage – which destroys families by empowering women over men? Why not just do private marriages with no license involved? Could it be that they are afraid of losing their tax free status?

Don’t diss the Greens! Of course, we’re a small party. That’s because we don’t have corporate backing.
—————————————
In some respects I like the “Green Manifesto” or whatever they call it. But I just can’t buy into all that politically correct social stuff.
I hope OWS maintains a focus on the economic issues and stays out of the social arena.

So after carving out the wealth of the country, destroying the economy, we are now going to frack ourselves in a last ditch desperate attempt to keep the music going?
We are going to confront Peak Oil on a land base polluted with uranium tailings, chemical pesticides and thousands of tons of high level nuclear waste. If we ruin the fresh water resource as well we are truly “fracked”.

“IMO, both science, and what is now called meta-physics (or religion) both have value”
Yeah? Well, try running your car or household electrical system on faith in Jesus, and then we’ll talk about their comparative value.

Never got this notion of “saving” the Earth. If the CO2 level increased above human habitation, would the earth care? Maybe the earth would even “like” it better, more room for trees afterall….
On that same thought….it often seems the people who least like other people, most want to “save” the earth, if they don’t like people who are they saving it for?

“Of course, the first order of business is to get corporate money out of politics. Are we capable of doing that?”
Not a snowball’s chance in hell. As you’ve stated, we’ve gone in exactly the opposite direction lately.

Yeah? Well, try running your car or household electrical system on faith in Jesus, and then we’ll talk about their comparative value.
——————————————–
You’re just so practical aren’t you?
I know how to make you crazy; “man does not live on bread alone”, or in Tripp’s case, apparently he doesn’t live on bread at all.

Hi Outpost, I’m sitting here in Upper Canada enjoying your analysis of the political situation here with the NDP. I agree with your prediction of a massive push-back from those who would oppose any hint of progressive thinking. When the NDP won Ontario in 1990 there were nasty billboards up in Toronto denouncing them as socialists within weeks and the onslaught never stopped. Big Money was horrified at the thought of losing even a little control.
And reading the comments of Wandering Bear, I agree with him too about the utter impossibility of talking any sense into the tea party types.
So if Big Money doesn’t get us, the Wingnuts will. Push-back indeed. To the max.

“Metaphysics is almost always an attempt to prove the incredible by an appeal to the unintelligible.” Henry Louis Mencken
I much prefer being engaged in the real world and all that entails. It is fascinating and engaging enough without recourse to faith-based hallucinations for sustenance.

According to the DSM-IV the major component of this disorder is “the reduced ability to feel empathy for other people”.
In this economy large corporations turn their American workers into permatemps. Fast cycling of herds of cheap benefit free permatemps before unemployment claims can acquire enough months to count saves the rat-bastards even more money.
Screams from lives ruined as middle class jobs fall away are unheard as the new broken unemployed simply disappear, life in America.
Tasering is not good enough for these people. As legal persons corporation need to be locked down and trussed up like Hannibal Lecter.

I watched an anti-drug (legal drugs, that is) movie, and there was a part where this family talked about the death of their child.
She was 16 or so, and she got nervous when she had to take a test at school. Her doctor diagnosed her problem as “test anxiety”, and gave her Prozac.
She killed herself.
An increase in suicide is a side effect of anti-depressants, as it happens. And they knew it.
And the FDA knew it, before they approved it.
The interesting thing about this child is that she was friends with the daughter of one of the FDA board who approved Prozac!
Did it make him feel bad? I don’t know.
I know that it took more than a decade for them to do something about it.
What did they do? Put a Black Box warning out.
Yep, I’m sure that that is as effective as the warnings on the cigarette packages.

The post from the person in Pennsylvania talking about fracking and what it’s doing to them really got to me. The Alberta tar sands will be just as bad and it’s all for nothing, nothing at all.
Cue Bob Dylan: A Hard Rain’s Gonna Fall
Sooner than we think I suspect as financial and environmental collapse collide and their combined effects bring the whole civilization thing crashing down.

Wow, Jim, you speak a lot of truth in this post. Your two strongest sentiments:
“Corporations are sociopaths. They need to be tasered!” (Why haven’t I heard this suggestion before? Perfect.)
and …
“This winter will be the Occupy Movement’s Valley Forge.” (A daunting, even chilling, yet inspiring thought … )

Damn right he needs help! Cob is very difficult to mix.
I took to using horse manure instead of straw. Easier to mix, since it was already digested into small pieces.
Still, I never finished, because it was too exhausting to do. And the internet was invented.

In some respects I like the “Green Manifesto” or whatever they call it. But I just can’t buy into all that politically correct social stuff.
=================
I haven’t read it yet but the NY Times has an Op-Ed page article today titled The Dark Side of the ‘Green’ City. The highlighted sentence is “Not everyone can afford low-carbon living.”

Q nailed the gestalt of America today.
Isn’t it just OK to be selfish? What’s so wrong with that?
It amazes me that the pro-fracking, pro-tarsands, pro-mountain-top removal ads are frankly and openly selfish and short sighted.
They brag that “we” have 20 years left of …(fill in the blank) and “we” (fill in the corporation) are responsibly getting that energy for you, the consumer.
So what happens after 20 years? Is that really so long?
What happens when the fossil fuels are gone, and so are the mountains, the rivers, the aquifers and the springs?
Seriously? We don’t have to think about 20 years from now, or future generations? It’s OK to be selfish and go for that coal, or gas, or oil and screw the environment and future generations, including us, 20 years from now? (I expect to still be here, although that may be optimistic, what with the radiation spewing from Fukiyama, while Obama proposes building more nuclear power plants in the US, with taxpayer money, of course).
Ayn Rand said so, so it must be OK.
Not just corporations are sociopaths.

To the people defending right wing Christianity- not only is it very possible that Christians have more dead bodies in their pile than any other religion, the right wing Christians in this country are blood-thirsty and ready to kill.
And the Air Force headquarters in Colorado Springs, which is also headquarters to James Dobson, and other extremely evil people, has, by some accounts, been infiltrated by crazy Christians.
If that doesn’t scare normal people, I don’t know what will.

I’ve been in “alternative” energy business for many years which encompasses a multitude of good stuff and nonsense too of course. However Krugman is correct that solar is now (without any subsidies either for fossil fuels or solar) economically viable even without considering the externalities of fossil fuels which are non trivial. It’s not often mentioned that individual residential and light commercial pv systems are inherently redundant and result in distributed systems which require very little modification of our aging electrical grid infrastructure. Further there are very rapid developments in battery technology which will soon mean that storage and load management will vastly increase the viability of both solar and wind systems. Never thought I’d see it in my lifetime, maybe Kurzweil is correct the singularity is near and will save us, if it doesn’t kill us first.

People in cities are healthier than people in the suburbs.
No one has to hassle them, or monitor them, or pass laws to make them exercise.
The built environment is such that people in cities walk more, are therefore healthier.
Proper zoning laws would make personal health laws unnecessary.

For what it is worth, I am going to the OWS protest and camping out for a week. I am traveling to and from my job from the protest (my work place has a shower). This isn’t just for content for my blog (while I will write about it), or to make me feel good (it will be cold and wet and I hate crowds), but it is just about all I can do these days seeing how my writing online, signing various protest letters/etc, and trying to gather together my own house (third month in a row I come close to zero in the bank in all my accounts). I believe that many of those out there in the park are the lunatic fringe, but many more have jobs and homes and are trying to play the game that is stacked against us.
My own rants can be found at the usual space: schwerpunkter at wordpress dot com.

Wage
Max Keiser and his show can be found on the RT website at the bottom of the page, right side. He is an absolute hoot. He really tells it like it is, a refreshing commentator who is also good for a few laughs.
For everyone else here, as I said in my first post today, the “Western Democracies” have openly abandoned democracy. So all this discussion of the 2012 election is really sort of moot. The man or woman with the most money in the old campaign “war chest” will win, plain and simple. In other words the presidency will be bought by the 0.01 % –OK- everyone got that? And that bought and paid for minion will enact more policies to benefit those 0.01%. Any questions?

Pretty interesting, Dennis.
Do I understand you to be saying that corporate charters should be abolished, and people going into business should do so under their own names and liability?
The other day I stopped by the local occupation (3 guys in a tent) and a Ron Paul libertarian was there haranguing them about what their demands should be.
Interestingly, he was advocating the overthrow of Citizens United, which I didn’t know was a Ron Paul position.
I stated my position, which is that there should be no government-issued license to do business without accountability, and the right winger and the left winger both looked at me with shock and horror.
(And I didn’t even say anything about sharia law!)
They literally couldn’t imagine an economic system without giant vampire squid corporations, although, of course, they both chanted the mandatory american mantra about their preference for small local businesses.
Well, what better way to have local small and/or cooperatively run businesses than to cut off the multi-national corporate monsters that run the planet?

Thank you, loveday, and I did enjoy your comment about the open hostility the “international democracies” showed to Papendreu and his inartful offer to open up an important national question to the people affected. The nerve!
I have listened to Max Keiser before and I enjoy him immensely.
Have you tried “Guns and Butter”? It is very good.
I think that lbendet recommended the Catherine Austin Fitts one.
I have also brought the idea of communities investing their pension funds in local initiatives, especially power-supplying ones.
Anyone who ever played Monopoly knows that power is a good investment.
Why can’t my city use its workers (who drive around a lot in pickup trucks) to install solar panels on each house, with a connection to the local power co-op, so that power can be sold to the company? And the money gained could be used to fund the workers retirement, instead of gambling on Wall Street?
Pension funds could also be used to insulate and repair each house. The less power used, the more sold back.
Instead, they “invest” the funds on Wall Street, and then tell us taxes must be raised to make up the losses.
In 1994, when Orange Country went bankrupt because the manager had invested on Wall Street and the stocks went down, it was considered a major scandal. Now it’s accepted practice!
It reminds me of when it was revealed that the CIA had assassinated foreign leaders. It was a major scandal, and laws were passed to prevent it from happening again
Now Obama brags about assassinating foreign leaders, and even US citizens, and the likes of asoka hold him up for praise!
Unbelievable!

Zandrak, I looked at that “expose”. In my opinion these allegations are invalid. All the arguments are based on the following fallacy: group X receives privileged treatment from the state. RP opposes government granting special privileges. Therefore RP is hostile towards group X.
RP’s philosophy of liberty and constitutional government is based on the basic premise that the only legitimate purpose of government is the protection of life and liberty. As soon as individuals or groups start to attempt to harness the power of the state to obtain special privileges at the expense of their fellow citizens, you end up in an arms race for political influence. In the end everybody looses, because more effort is expended on manipulating the spoils system than on productive, wealth-producing activities.

“I much prefer being engaged in the real world and all that entails.”
So, the homes that are rehabbed for the homeless by church based organizations, the soup kitchens to feed the hungry, the thrift shops to clothe the less fortunate the visitors at senior centers who visit those without friends or surviving relatives, those activities aren’t “real world?” You my son, are living in the dream world.

Now Obama brags about assassinating foreign leaders, and even US citizens, and the likes of asoka hold him up for praise!

Unfair Wage.
I have called for Obama to be tried in the ICC as a war criminal. I have criticized Obama’s drone murders in all caps (now the drones are killing USA soldiers as well) for years now. I have said Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize should be taken away.
Personal foul. 15 yard penalty. Still first down.

The Occupy Movement in many American and Canadian cities is already showing signs of weakness as the idealists are either pushed out or become outnumbered by the mentally ill, hard-core drug users, homeless youth and anyone else drawn by the prospect of free housing, food and medical services. The recent drug-related death of a 23 year-old woman at Occupy Vancouver following a number of drug overdoses at Occupy Vancouver, the violence at the Oakland ports, and the disillusionment voiced by many former Occupy protesters that the movement still has no coherent agenda is leading many to believe that the Occupy movement has outlived its’ welcome. God only knows what will take its place as the initial burst of optimism and idealism that greeted the movement’s arrival is replaced by the realities of life in an Occupy encampment, Here’s hoping the brighter minds in the movement are able to translate their political passion into a movement that can change the Democratic party from within.

Not really. Bondholders (those holding debt) have been promised a specified percentage of return along with the return their initial loan. Share holders are promised….nothing. Thats the deal. No likey, no play.
==================
I’m going out on a limb again. I say Mrs Beasley is Tootsie/Fabian back again under another guise.

Get real. They do not care what you or I think of them. They have the power and the money. That is all they care about.

LOL!
Fortunately, happiness does not require greate quantities of money or great quantities of power.
It is not necessary to worship at the altars of money and power to have a life in which each moment is diffused with joy. I am testifying.

. I have called for Obama to be tried in the ICC as a war criminal.
. I have criticized Obama’s drone murders in all caps.
. I have said Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize should be taken away.
=====================
. I have said “I like Obama ‘as a person.'”
. I have quoted WW: “Do I contradict myself? Well then I contradict myself. I am large. I contain multitudes.”
The call on the field is upheld … loss of one time out.

“Portents of winter
and the toothless chatter
of flag-draped traitors
vies with a fog of lies
spread by Koch Brother messenger boys”
-JHK-
Hidden messages and poetry this week, JHK?
Most impressive – shades of Whitman and Thoreau? –
Or someone of more modern vintage, perhaps?
“As I walk through the valley of the shadow of death
I take a look at my life and realise there’s none left
‘Cause I’ve been brassing and laughing so long that
Even my mamma thinks that my mind is gone”
-Coolio-

“I hope OWS maintains a focus on the economic issues and stays out of the social arena.”
Economic and social issues are basically one and the same. Need I explain why?
————————————-
Oh no….something tells me I’m in for a long harrange on feminist economics or some similar topic. Is this payback?

Dear Dale,
Did you post here earlier this year that this Blog had wandered too far from the Issue of Peak Oil?
——————————————–
Yes, I think what I was really getting at was it had wandered too far into insanity.

Can you toss me some numbers on this, I’m serious. I checked out a 25K array about 5 years ago and the payback was roughly 60 years without subsidy. Since the panels are only good for about 25 I wasn’t too impressed. I’ve got a flat roof large enough for it, facing due south.

“sustainable crop production characterised by reduced inputs of pesticides and synthetic fertilizers (low-input cropping systems) and increased agricultural biodiversity.”
Tractors, pesticides, and fertilizers replaced people and produced a monster. The only way to get rid of the monster is to replace tractors, pesticides, and fertilizers with people.
I have several friends who work at the UGA Coastal Plains experiment station down here in sunny south Georgia, and every time I broach this subject their eyes just glaze over. Why do we keep the tractors employed and worry about diesel prices when so many humans are unemployed?
Oh yeah, because farm work is beneath them, and because we screwed up the food production infrastructure, and the American appetite, so badly it’s hard to see a way out. And the hardest part of all for Americans is that it will be difficult! Everyone is looking for an answer that doesn’t involve them getting sweaty and dirty, but it ain’t there to be had.
You nailed it at the end. The only salvation is a massive shift from agriculture to horticulture, with an additional 75+% of the population returning to the soil. The quicker the better. Now doesn’t that sound easy??
PS – I envy your experience in the earth building department. Hopefully in a couple of years I can be familiar with that feeling too.

“This fallacy is dogma in the ranks of the OSWers … that anyone who has anything got it illegally.”
Come on, Q, don’t hate on the OWSers. They have a legitimate laundry list of complaints. Besides, we all know that you made your money morally. At the poker table.

Way to go Vlad. You get right to the absurdity of trying to make everyone his brother’s keeper.
——————————————–
Tik,
Are you Vlad’s secret prison buttboy? Are you mincing around the cellblock in a cheerleader sweatshirt with a big V on the front? Has he carved a swastika in your forehead yet? Did I spell everything right?
——————————————–
Psssst!! Buster J, this is how you launch a personal attack, don’t try to dress it up with any bogus half-hearted attempts to address anything substantive. If you can’t tell the difference between a tennis match and two guys blindly swinging away at each other with axes, just go with what you know.

(Prozac teen suicide):
“I know that it took more than a decade for them to do something about it.
What did they do? Put a Black Box warning out.
Yep, I’m sure that that is as effective as the warnings on the cigarette packages.”
Well, there ya go, Wage.
That’s the solution that “working within the system” will get you.
Were that my kid, things would get quite a bit more “old school”. True understanding of the word “consequences” would be reached.

“This fallacy is dogma in the ranks of the OSWers … that anyone who has anything got it illegally.”
——————————————–
Amazing isn’t it? Tik, knows exactly what is going on in the “ranks” of the OSW (yes, ranks, their all ranked up over there, haven’t you noticed?) . I’m just guessing maybe his source is Fox News, ya think?

“It looks like you’re reiterating the platform you outlined in “My Tea Party” from July of 2010, minus the restrictions on immigration. While that will likely displease your more racist readers, it makes me happy.”
-neon vincent-
OK, neon – so JHK was a racist in 7/10 and now he’s not? No, no, that can not be right.
– So NOT mentioning immigration policy in one week’s CFN post makes JHK NOT be racist. Even though JHK has never publicly changed his “My TEA Party” views??
No, no, that can not be right, either.
Deciding important public question on the basis of “it makes me happy” (TM Neon Vincent) does not seem right, either.
==============================
Seriously, neon, why is stating a position against “immigration,” legal OR illegal -RACIST?
Why, neon, why?
How was the Coffee Party Platform developed?
Where does one go to suggest changes to it?
=========================
While we’re talking about question platforms –
Does anyone on CFN know of a good website for ongoing discussion of the OWS “platform.”

“How about a fifth order of business, i.e. those able-bodied souls who don’t produce, don’t eat?”
Just to play devil’s advocate, I’m curious as to how you define “production.” As an ecologist, when I think of production, I think of autotrophs – plants or phytoplankton, plus or minus a few others.
As a permaculturalist I think of a producer as someone whose annual activities sequester more carbon than they liberate, say a mob-grazer living a very simple life.
However, if by producer you mean someone who wakes up to an alarm, has a cup of coffee from halfway around the world, drives to work, eats a lunch of industrial food out; uses a computer, paper, pens, iPhone, fax, tech support, etc; manages a 401(k) plus private investments, watches TV, drinks, smokes, and pops a pill so he can sleep and get up tomorrow to do it all again, just so he can uphold the great American standard of what “productivity” looks like, then I’m afraid your idea of production is more the problem than the solution. Far more of a problem than a modest person living a modest life, drawing a little unemployment because he paid into the system while he was working and now really needs it, and trying to live a simpler life and find his niche as a vendor at the local farmers market.
Now, I understand that this isn’t your archetype for someone on “welfare.” It’s much easier to hate them if you can envision them as fat, lazy, (probably brown-skinned), with 5 children, driving an Escalade, but those people are precious few. The typical UE/food stamp benefactor today is a formerly middle class couple, who had to sell their home for a loss, surrendered the vehicle they were making payments on, are about to default on their student loans, and are researching every nook and cranny they can find for a new life to make up for the one that got sucked into the CDS/CDO/REIT/offshoring black hole that the average Joe is protesting.
Want to find the people responsible for financially breaking the US? Look for people holding lots of money, asshole. People receiving public aid give every dollar of it back to the rentier class within the week. Why is this so hard to understand?
Oh wait, let me guess, you’re not a member of the rentier class. Damn, that sucks, man.

Without knowing your specific circumstances it would be difficult for me to give you good numbers. I can say that 5yrs ago I was paying more than 4$/watt in panel prices and now I can purchase better products for about $1.50/watt, so the actual panels are roughly 1/3 of when you last checked. The other components IE inverters, racks, wiring, etc probably haven’t changed much. Given the low panel prices ,federal and most state tax breaks it makes sense to price your system again today. Also would say that even though panels are generally warranted for 25yrs they will certainly last much longer.

Nope. Did you not congratulate Obama for supposedly assassinating Osama?
Did you not brag that the US managed to kill Ghaddafi (and thousands of Libyans) without one single US soldier being killed?
I think that you did. The reason that I brought you up is because you are the resident peace person, yet you have praised Obama for his illegal assassinations.

When the oil subsidies from the USSR ended, Cuba switched to organic agriculture, and offered land, seeds and training to anyone interested.
Ghaddafi did the same.
You are wrong to think that “Americans” don’t want to get dirty. There are 300 million Americans, ranging from selfish Q, his shallow wife and dingbat mother-in-law, to many, many kids who want to go back to the land, but can’t afford it.
If the US did land redistribution and support, we could quickly get back to local agriculture.
I know you’re working on your version, and there are people around here working on it also.
As usual, there is no money, so it’s difficult.
For agribusiness, there’s billions.

Nope. Did you not congratulate Obama for supposedly assassinating Osama?
=================
No, I called the members of Seal Team 6 murderers and war criminals, too. Where you gettin’ this stuff, Wage?Did you not brag that the US managed to kill Ghaddafi (and thousands of Libyans) without one single US soldier being killed?
I compared Bush’s ability to wage war with Obama’s and concluded that Obama was smarter, spent less money, and did not get 4,500 USA soldiers killed in Libya. I said, if there was to be any war, even a war I do not support, I am always glad when less human life is lost. I don’t call that bragging. It is a simple wish that less human life, Libyan or American or anyone else, be lost in senseless war. It does not justify loss of Libyan lives at all and is not bragging.

Amazing isn’t it? Tik, knows exactly what is going on in the “ranks” of the OSW
===============
WOWzer; I misspell OWSer and Dale follows right along and duplicates the error; Had his chance to nail me and blew it.
The highly offensive prevailing belief that having two or more nickels to rub together is proof in itself of illegal activity will cause nothing but pushback detrimental to their cause.

Bear writes:
” But these evangelical NASCAR freaks living in the ’50s are another story! They actually see everything the OWS movement is trying to do as a communist plot against their beloved land of the free.”
Have you ever read a transcript of a Limbaugh/Hannity tirade? These are not intellectual giants and yet they fill the philosophical/political cups of those you mentioned each and every day. To be a republican in 2011 is tantamount to wearing an imbecile dunce cap.

If the US did land redistribution and support, we could quickly get back to local agriculture.
=================
Yeah, if.
When this happens — shortly after hell freezes over — I will petition the reigning DICTATOR to have your spread be the first to be re-distributed. Being the goody-two-shoes that you are, you should be down wit dat.
Whew! Talk about DINGbats!

Notice how Obama always fares better against a specific GOP candidate as opposed to a generic one. Derrida might have termed this the power of the ‘unmarked term’. Likewise, an OWS movement empowers itself in eschewing partisan politics while simultaneously declaring a manifesto.
Being taking for granted is not the dynamic of political leverage.

I watched Network last night; it didn’t cause me to say what I’m about to say, but it reinforced the vehement hatred for everything fascist (read American government and the corporations) that we have no way to escape on a daily basis. So here you have it: I truly wish Al Qaeda would return–on the State of the Union address–with a big enough bomb to ensure that every scumbag in the Capitol building is surely dead. Period. Fuck you America.

“Surely in a population of 310 million you can find more than a few resolute personalities who refuse to just sit back and watch the sickening spectacle of inept vacillation.”
You would think so. I keep trying to give people the benefit of the doubt, but alas am again disappointed. All the blogs read the same. We’re on the Titanic and it’s sinking and everyone wants to argue about who’s going to provide the last lifeboat.
St. Roy and lsjogren got it right. Two words: Population Control. Population-as in how to reduce it drastically. Control-as in how to retain and expand our power. These are the only 2 problems the Powers That Be are interested in solving. Just accept it.

Chippendale said, “There is little in your post that is anything more than a personal attack, so I don’t deem it worth a detailed response.”
My only regret is that I did not point out that religion has had thousands of years to solve problems like disease, war, famine, human misery, et. al., and has failed totally and utterly… long before J.C. & the Boys came along.
Science is providing all the solutions to these problems. Religion seems to be jealous, or, “Jelly” as they say in some quarters.

Notice how Obama always fares better against a specific GOP candidate as opposed to a generic one. Derrida might have termed this the power of the ‘unmarked term’.

Buck, I think Derrida understands Obama and the key to such understanding is differance, in other words differance is what makes the movement of signification possible only if each element called “present,” appearing on the stage of presence, is related to something other than itself, but is retaining the mark of its relation to the future element, — the trace relating no less to what is called the future by this very relation to what is not; that is, not even to a past or future considered as a modified present.

Jimmy DrinkH2o says “Any bicycle will do… even small ICE powered bikes and cargo bikes are appropriate technology for the times.”

the Census estimates there are roughly 79.6 million people aged 45 to 64 in America. If you divide 79.6 million by 19 years, then divide that by 365 days, you get 11,478. That’s the number of people, on average, who will turn 65 each day for the next 19 years.

It was the first generation in the history of the world to be ferried cradle to grave on infernal combustion… small ICE powered bikes, indeed.
The only problem with the ICE powered bikes is, well, everything. The technology is complete shit. The vast majority of the kits are clabbered together garbage.
Ideally you’d have a near-zero emissions modified ICE with noise suppression, greatly extended gas mileage, etc.
What you get is a jerry-rigged leafblower engine bolted to a regualr bicycle. It does neither the weedblower or the bicycle any favors.
Does America aspire to the ambiance of Calcutta during rush-hour? Hell no.

Sensitivity training for ‘the troops’….
And who is Shafiq Mubarak? All I can find out is that he is a Pro Sol contractor (?) hired by the Marine Corps Center for Advanced Operational Culture Learning to help implement “the U.S. strategy in Afghanistan, the winning of hearts and minds.” At least that’s how Col. Furness puts it. According to the North County Times, Mubarak didn’t come to the US until 2008 — from where the story doesn’t say — but has been working with US troops in A-stan “for much of the past decade.”
How is that? Why is that? Dunno. What the story does report is that Mubarak teaches the do’s and don’t’s of sharia — kind of, Islam for Leathernecks.
Mubarak teaches US Marines:
Don’t spit toward Mecca……………….
Don’t urinate toward Mecca………………….
Don’t sleep with your boots toward Mecca.!!!!!!!!!!
In other words, Mubarak teaches US Marines to become intensely sensitized to the whereabouts of Mecca, and to be guided by that
magnetic North for Muslims as a matter of the most personal habits and hygiene — in accordance with sharia (Islamic law).
This goes well, of course, with ISAF’s guidance to all troops to revere the Koran and its teachings.
[What next, prayer rugs?]
Mubarak told the North County Times:
“We can’t win just by fighting,” said Mubarak, who came to the U.S. less than three years ago after working with American forces in Afghanistan for much of the past decade. “Sitting with tribal elders, learning their problems and helping them is crucial.”
Asoka …chance fer you to give this a ‘thumbs up’.

“… resolute personalities who refuse to just sit back and watch the sickening spectacle of inept vacillation.” – Shak quoting JHK
=============
Does Jim really intend that inept be an adjective modifying vacillation? Shouldn’t we be thankful the vacillation is inept? i.e. lacking in skill and aptitude. We don’t want more and “better” (so to speak) vacillation, do we?
I’m guessing Jim is really speaking of two separate things (two nouns) and that the end of the sentence should have read “the sickening spectacle of ineptitude and vacillation.”

Iwide says “I think RON PAUL offers some new ideas…”
RP’s problem is the fact he doesn’t seem to believe in himself; he kowtows for the Republican party, the party that laughs at him behind his back- in every campaign since 1988.

[What next, prayer rugs?]
============
Oh Boy, Anti … I’m with you 1000% on this one. Nothing galls me more than the idea of one place or space being thought of as more holy than another. Or, for that matter, holy at all. Mecca, in Islam … a container on an alter housing the “host” in Roman Catholicism.
To what depth in the Earth’s crust below Mecca, and to what altitude in the air above, does this holiness extend?
With the advent of the GPS perhaps our soldiers can be even more precise in the direction they pee. Sometimes I actually yearn to leave this world and its inanities.

“Amazing isn’t it? Tik, knows exactly what is going on in the “ranks” of the OSW”
Got that one…
“Tik, knows exactly what is going on in the “ranks” of the OSW (yes, ranks, their all ranked up over there, haven’t you noticed?).”
…and missed this one! Doh! Those there/their/they’re usages are tricky, aren’t they?!
I think the protest is not so much that some have more than others. That’s just nature. That’s biodiversity. I think the hubbub is more about the ones who have so much more due to no-bid contracts, insider trading, tax loopholes, offshore money, sweatshop labor…oh, and the open, outright pillaging of the public coffers by the very richest among us. But that’s just a guess.

“You are wrong to think that “Americans” don’t want to get dirty. There are 300 million Americans, ranging from selfish Q, his shallow wife and dingbat mother-in-law, to many, many kids who want to go back to the land, but can’t afford it.
If the US did land redistribution and support, we could quickly get back to local agriculture.”
Wage, I’ll make a deal with you. I’ll pretend like this post never happened if you give me a freebie at some later date of my request. I’m sure I’ll need it;)

I’m sick to death of seeing the dung-brained around here type: “what about Ron Paul?” You know what Ron Paul proves, idiots? That you are NOT required to wear a hood to be in the Klan. Now, shut up and go away.

After Reading Matt Taibbi’s Blog at Rolling Stone (Taibbiblog) it sounded like Bloomberg, Mr. Corporation Himself, wants to transfer the blame away from the banks, their CDS, their MBS, their CDO scams and put the blame on the scammed mortgagee.
We need a third party candidate. That is for sure.
I listened to Danny Glover’s speech at the Occupy Oakland, and he was passionate. He might just be the face to unite all the Occupy locations and move this movement forward.
See the speech here:http://eye-on-washington.blogspot.com

“People in cities are healthier than people in the suburbs.”
Yeah, it’s just too bad about the complete lack of production space, whether that’s soil- or garage-based. Oh, and the need to clear whatever adaptation they wish to try out with so many other people. Those suburbs, man, all that space, solar access, and autonomy. They are definitely doomed.

“And hand-to-hand combat! Sorry man, there isn’t going to be an easy way out.”
Whew! Thank god. For a second there I thought Wage might have been onto something. I’m glad you straightened all that out.

…man liveth not by bread alone…
================
Yeah Chuck, hanging “th” on the end of a word or two and placing the “not” after the verb are two biggies in Bible quotation.
And then there’s the whole “thou” and “shalt” business. How lame would “You mustn’t kill” be?

I had breakfast with Jill when we went to Boston.
Mousy nerd? I thought you were all about demure women.
And nerd? You mean smart? Sure, that doesn’t go over well in America, but I thought that you were all about intelligence. Right?
Or can’t you stand for a woman to be smart and female?

WOW! Too much stuff for me to take in all at once. Some good points made by JHK this week, despite his usual vitriole. Some vague observations thus far:
Asoka seems to be in a forever state of love/hate realtionship with Obama.
Tripp made a good point in that we all tend to vilify the people who live off of the “welfare state”. How many of you who have mortgages realize you’re one of these “welfare queens”? I could go on, but hopefully you get my drift.
Q said something that sounded quite telling that the big banksters who received the bailouts from us working stiffs are simply benefiting from their OWN hard work and nose-to-the-grindstone work ethic, despite having intentionally swindled the American investors and TAXPAYERS (?) A very large WTF inserted here!
Jimmy (and or Bustin) seem to believe that the baby boomers are to blame for having grown up in a world of oil abundance…as if they could have possibly helped the year they were born ..’46-’64??
As for me, I feel like ya kinda have to take the cards you were dealt and try not to bitch too much about it. If you’re still young and healthy enough, figure out how to survive and thrive either where you are or find someplace you can travel. And if you CAN organize on a local level, by all means, FREAKING DO IT! Lord knows we need you now!
And waiting for some type of land redistribution or BIG SOCIAL SAVIOR EVENT to happen, via government or coup, what have you…sorry, it just ain’t gonna happen. Not here! Just my .02. ;0

Wage, if it matters to you, I am endorsing Jill Stein for President and will vote for her.

Stein advocates for the creation of a “Green New Deal”, the objective of which would be to employ “every American willing and able to work” to address “climate change…[and the] converging water, soil, fisheries, forest, and fossil fuel crises” by working towards “sustainable energy, transportation and production infrastructure: clean renewable energy generation, energy efficiency, intra-city mass transit and inter-city railroads, “complete streets” that safely encourage bike and pedestrian traffic, regional food systems based on sustainable organic agriculture, and clean manufacturing of the goods needed to support this sustainable economy

OK, I thought you congratulated Obama on the murder of Osama. You say you didn’t, and I don’t want to go back and check, so, OK.
Comparing murderers on their efficiency, and congratulating the more efficient? See, that’s what I’m saying!

Are you really that stupid, Q?
Do you not realize that the big agribusiness owners are not living on their land?
The biggest tax cheats live in San Francisco and New York.
They would not be thrown off any land. They sharecrop it out, you dipshit.

Myrtlemay, I’ve had it with Obama. He requested a $671 Billion 2012 defense budget!
I am officially endorsing Jill Stein. The Green Party considers nonviolence central to its platform. Neither the Republican nor the Democratic Party has nonviolence in its platform.
I voted for Dick Gregory in 1968, then for third-party candidates in every election afterwards, until, for the first time, I voted Democratic in 2008.
As a pacifist/anarchist/communist (no, those are not contradictory) I cannot vote for Obama again.
I violated my principles by voting for Obama in 2008, believing he would end the wars and close Guantanamo. I wasted my vote by voting for a Democrat.
Voting for the Green Party I will be sure NOT to waste my vote (as if voting has made any difference since 1968).

Well, it does matter to me. I certainly hope that you keep your promise and don’t go all moon-eyed over Obama when he goes into campaign mode and starts making promises again.
I only pick on you, asoka, because you seem like a decent person, and I’m trying to hold you to it.
I don’t expect anything from Q or the other hateful people on this blog.

Comparing murderers on their efficiency, and congratulating the more efficient? See, that’s what I’m saying!
==============
OK, Wage, you have convinced me. I am changing my mind as a result of your arguments. Change is possible.
I am now supporting Jill Stein for President of the United States of America in 2012.
Let it not be said that no one ever changes their position as a result of CFN posts. I have just changed from Barack Obama to Jill Stein because Wage informed me of the inconsistency (immorality, really) of praising or voting for Obama or any Democratic candidate or any Republican candidate.

I could not believe when Q said he has not read the guiding principles of the Green Party.
Here you go, Q:
Grassroots democracy
Social justice and equal opportunity
Ecological wisdom
Nonviolence
Decentralization
Community-based economics
Feminism and gender equality
Respect for diversity
Personal and global responsibility
Future focus and sustainability
The Green Party does not accept donations from corporations.

Q said …… that the big banksters who received the bailouts from us working stiffs are simply benefiting from their OWN hard work and nose-to-the-grindstone work ethic,
==============
Picture the following all-caps words in 24 point font:
MYRTLE, WHERE the FUCK do you get THAT^ from anything I wrote??? If I ruled the world there would be NO GOVERNMENT BAILOUTS. FAILING COMPANIES SHOULD FAIL … whether its GENERAL MOTORS or GOLDMAN SACHS.
Does THAT clarify it for you??

They sharecrop it out, you dipshit.
===============
Wage, don’t make this more complex than it needs to be. You are a re-distributionist and it extends waaay beyond farmland. Mrs Robin Hood. Rob from those who have and give it to those who don’t. The haves got what they have illicitly. This is basic WageThink.

Don’t get me wrong, I’d fuck her. But President? Whatever happened to Wilma Mankiller? Nerds are smart in general. But they lack a kind of emotional intelligence, typically the kind that give you street smarts. And that’s fatal in politics.

I don’t expect anything from Q or the other hateful people on this blog.
=============
Anyone who does not believe in the redistribution of wealth in accordance with Wage’s Marxist view of moral right is hateful. Ipso Facto.

Asoka,
Was a vote for Ralph Nader in 2000 essentially a vote for George W Bush? And will a vote for Jill Stein essentially be a vote for Rick Perry,Newt Gingrich, Herman Came, or even Dan Quayle – assuming he is the last Republican standing?

A $671 BILLION Defense budget for 2012 eh, is that the new version of audacity of hope? Hope for what, to annihilate every living thing on the friggin’ planet? Just one more reason to look for another option. Problem is, right now I’m not seeing it on the political horizon. How does a D. Ratigan / E.Warren ticket sound? What can I say, I like articulate people who want to shake things up.
Obama started to lose me when he didn’t close Gitmo after making it such a moral issue during the campaign. Things have gone mostly sideways ever since. I was really hoping he’d grow a pair, but it’s obvious by now that’s not going to happen. “So fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me”.
That said, given the reality check we’re all ’bout to encounter the real danger is ourselves and whether we decide to take the easy (though messy) way out via war and / or fascism. Lets all hope we don’t get played again into doing some other country’s dirty little war. Good morning, I r a n…what’s not to like about perpetural war? Good for growth, right?
Thanks to all here at the CF’dN for sharing info, I’m going to check out Jill Stein.
Forever the optimist…

If your wife was going to have an affair, wouldn’t you want her to do it somewhere other than your marriage bed? Is this not sacred between two people?
When I walk a circle or trace with my finger, the enclosed space becomes sacred because of my intent. Things are because they’re not something else; things are here because other things aren’t. Think of the purity of the page, the neatness of the master carpenter, the isolated variable in a scientist’s experiment. As Kierkegard said, “Purity of heart is to will one thing”.

Q,
You remind me of this quote…
“The modern conservative is engaged in one of man’s oldest excuses in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness.”
–John Kenneth Galbraith
Wouldn’t you agree? I’m not much of a moralist, but it just seems to fit so well.

Christ deigned to be born as a man, to take up space, have height and breadth. Thus by being Here on Earth in Space and Time, he sanctified our world and our species. To quote the poet Gray, “He touched nothing that he did not adorn”.

Buck, I voted for Ralph Nader in 2000. I did not vote for George W Bush. If everyone who voted for Gore had voted for Nader, Nader would have won.
That is your argument, right? You think if those who voted for Nader had voted for Gore, Gore would have won. The argument works both ways.
If you recall, Al Gore did not even carry his own state of Tennessee as a favorite son.
I do not believe voting for your principles is a wasted vote. Everyone should vote their principles.
A vote for Obama would be against my principles.
Yes, I compromised my principles in 2008, not realizing I would get George W. Bush again. Worse than Bush, since Obama has deported more immigrants than Bush and Obama has bombed more countries than Bush.
I am not going to vote against Republicans. I am voting for my candidate: Jill Stein.

Never saw ANYONE fuck up Cassius like Joe.
================
I saw the first Ali-Frazier fight in real time. It was piped onto a screen in a huge hall somewhere in Connecticut (don’t recall exactly where, Stamford? Bridgeport?) when that technology was in its infancy. And, if I may use a worn but apt cliche, there was electricity in the air. Frazier won and I was up the entire night listening to discussion of the fight on radio. For shear drama and excitement there has been only one other fight in my time that compares: Hagler-Hearns.

Good point Vlad.
I’d add that a perfect relationship is when two people want the same thing.
Myrtle said, “Jimmy (and or Bustin) seem to believe that the baby boomers are to blame for having grown up in a world of oil abundance…as if they could have possibly helped the year they were born ..’46-’64?? ”
I do not generally hold ageist views. Its just that, at some future date it may not be amusing to an audience of younger people to reminisce about burning gasoline by the gallon on a routine basis. Or that one ate fish and other animal flesh. Or were able to peer into a glowing box and listen to something called “music”, as you huddle around your burnt charcoal and turnip dinner, figuring out which person the group will kill and eat next.

I think you’ve read The Road one too many times, Buster. In the future, surely we’ll have flying cars, robots that make us breakfast, computers that plug directly into the brain, and all that other happy horseshit.

Asoka said: “I do not believe voting for your principles is a wasted vote. Everyone should vote their principles. ”
People should vote with with their feet. They should vote with their disobedience. (Think of other ways you could vote).
* Asoka is totally voting Obama in 2012 *

Wouldn’t you agree?
============
I’ve expressed this opinion here before to scant applause … that it is impossible for a sane and conscious being to act unselfishly. It’s one of those things like: even God can’t make a square circle. Even Wage can’t act in other than her own self interest.
Now, who is going to be the first to say “What about the guy who dives on a live grenade to save his fellow soldiers?”

Asoka,
No, it’s not really my argument. I think a viable alternative to the two-party political monopoly is long overdue. However, the pragmatist holding his nose while voting for the “smallest turd in the toilet” might argue that ‘half a loaf is better than no loaf’ or the political equivalent of playing for a tie. And it’s illogical: Voting for a third-party candidate almost guarantees a massive turd in the short/medium turd with no promise of future political salvation. In fact, it might further entrench regressive political forces through legal/ institutional appointments.
Some many varying vantages points, out on the periphery.

Vlad Krandz comment 11-08- 1:04 AM…
According to NASA scientists, the Shroud of Turin is most likely authentic.
See “Isabel Piczec image found”
Add this to contemporary documentation for Christ’s visit to the Middle East and subsequent resurrection, -world views like Mormonism & Islam evaporate. So how shall Mitt Romney deal with this as a Bishop of Mormonism? Will he flip to the side of intellectual honesty after all?
How does Islam maintain reasonable claim to Jerusalem with Jews on site 2000 years prior? Of course rationality is not to be expected, so we resign ourselves to conflict, impact on Strait of Hormuz, Suez and Bab El Mandeb. Motor fuel rationing for the USA. These oilpatch religion items mentioned simply as reminders of how tenuous our rubber tire economy really is…
By 2015 America must have a very resolute and robust railway rebuild program under way. If not, energy restrictions (Diesel price hikes and shortage) will make transportation engineering to deal with Peak Oil well nigh impossible.
Jill Stein mentions intercity railway enhancement. Has she read and comprehend Christopher C. Swan’s detail on renewable linked railway upgrades (ELECTRIC WATER -New Society Press 2007)?

Q,
I recall that fight and you’re exactly right about the electricity in the air. Ali was on the comeback trail after being banned from boxing and Frazier was at his peak.
My other big fight memory was the first Duran/Leonard fight in June of 1980 in Montreal. Duran taunted Leonard at the weigh by grabbing his balls in that inexplicable display of Latin machismo. (I have also witnessed Italians doing that same groin grab).
Anyway Duran won – his defensive fight skills were astounding – but Leonard and his handlers knew “Manos de Piedra’ would party big time after his victory and they managed to get a rematch relatively quickly ensuring that Duran would have to shed a lot of weight quickly.
The rest is “No Mas” history.

“The modern conservative is engaged in one of man’s oldest excuses in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness.”
==============
The modern liberal is wedded to the idea that he knows best what should be done with other people’s wealth.

The rest is “No Mas” history.
==============
Yes, I also saw that first Leonard-Duran fight via “closed circuit” in a very large high school gym somewhere in North Jersey. It was another terrific fight I simply had to see.
I’ve seen many live fights as well: Earnie Shavers in the Garden, Tyson in Atlantic City, and a skinny black kid (forget his name) who held several NY Golden Gloves titles I saw live in the ’84 Olympics in LA. It was the first day of the boxing competition and he barely came away with the win in that first match.

Geo said, “The Occupy Movement in many American and Canadian cities is already showing signs of weakness as the idealists are either pushed out or become outnumbered by the mentally ill, hard-core drug users, homeless youth and anyone else drawn by the prospect of free housing, food and medical services.”
Where I live the local homeless had a roving tent city. It was on the Unitarian parking lot for a while, then it struck and went somewhere else for a while. They get moved around.
Once it was obvious a tent city was going up, well, everyone else who lives in something like that began arriving with all their belongings. People are coming out of woods, from under the freeway underpasses, the train trestles… some come off of a passing train or bus, some have been foreclosed on.
Still, its no Ritz Carlton. The people that stay there overnight, for the most part, sometimes have no other options. The temp. tonight will hover near freezing. Valley Forge indeed.
Now Occupy camps are large enough to allow a huge free-flow of people through 24/7. During the day the curious walk their dogs through, kids join the impromptu happenings, or the scheduled events, or they bring food, clothing, more stuff to make semi-permanent dwellings.
And yes, the less mentally adept homeless are within and about the place. The thing is, they do wander around, sometimes unsteadily. But you’re referring to people who have been marginalized for a very long time. To a lot of them this looks like real change, or at least a change for the better. None of them seem intent on seeing it fail.
And since they are homeless people, they are repellent in manner and attitude. But these are the people Jesus would be hanging out with. If you can handle interacting with street people, you’ll be fine.

Breaking news from Basten dot calm: “Accompanied by her prominent lawyer, Gloria Allred, Bialek accused Cain of making a sexual advance one night in mid-July 1997, when she had traveled to Washington to have dinner with him in hopes he could help her find work.
She said the two had finished dinner and were in a car for what she thought was a ride to an office building.
“Instead of going into the offices he suddenly reached over and he put his hand on my leg, under my skirt toward my genitals,” she said.
“He also pushed my head toward his crotch,” she added.
Bialek said she told her boyfriend, an unidentified pediatrician, as well as a longtime male friend about the episode.”
To sum up,
Even though your husband is a doctor, you still expect a powerful, rich pizza magnate not to try and go for First Base after he’s taken you out on a dinner date.
Poor Herman. Like most men he’s a clumsy Lothario. Hes probably used to paying for sex.
The media is suggesting that we should know who just gutted Herman Cain in the social arena. That would be Gloria Allred, a high powered lawyer who specializes in sexual harassment. She will proceed to pubic lynching and/or settlement. Herman may rue the day he stepped into the national spotlight.

The (refuse to capitalize) shroud of Turin? Really? Wasn’t there a textile expert from Harvard who recently (I think) determined that the kind of twill used in the shroud didn’t exist until several hundred years after the ALLEGED death of Jesus of Nazareth? Been layin’ bricks, gotta sleep. But, I will most definitely be looking for rebuttals.

Mr. Kunstler:
How about a fifth order of business, i.e. those able-bodied souls who don’t produce, don’t eat?
The uber-welfare state is right behind the war empire in bankrupting us as a nation.”
Not true at all. Its way, way behind the war empire. Saying its “right behind” is certainly bullshit.
People are out of work because there is not enough work to go around. Just like in early 1930’s, the work week should be shortened. Used to be a 6 day week. Eventually there weren’t enough people going to work on Saturday. So the trains stopped scheduling. This lead to the gradual acceptance of something called a weekend.
I have a similar idea, but add a day to the week. The 8th day will come after Sunday, but before Monday. I call it Arborday. The day can be used as people see fit. I think we should go to a 32 hour week as standard. Combined with the 8 day week, thats one whole half-week as “weekend”. Instead of 52 weeks a year, give or take, there would be 42 weeks, 42 extra Arbordays and 42 extra days off.
Its possible if we want it. Do we want it? Yes. Do the jerk-offs in power want it? No! Do the work-hogs hogging all the jobs want it? No! They want everything just as before, except for this time, they want the jobless beaten with plastic hoses!

Some time ago I read a very interesting book: Confessions of an economic hit man.
It was clearly explained the behavior of the big corporations and the IMF.
What they usually do to grab ALL the raw materials and the richness of a country of the third world.
First they reduce the country in heavy debts, lending money to build “infrastructures” that have very little to do with the name, or with the growth of the economy of the country.
They are exclusively on the interest of the big corporations which plan to be there.
This was John Perkin’s job (the economic hit man).
Second step is making the country insolvent, third step is Stealing all what they can, reducing the population in misery and so having people working for the big corporations for 30 dollars a month.
This allows the big managers to have a few private jets, the high class whores and similia, while people starve even working 12 hours a day, seven days a week…
Well , at that time I didn’t understand.
I didn’t understand that, after the third world it was the time for us.
Just as the written phrase I read when I was little, in the cemetery where my grandparents were buried: We were like you, you will be like us.
And people still do not understand.
First was Greece, now is Italy.
And France and Germany laugh.
We were like you, YOU will be like us.
The pattern is the same:
First putting the country in debts, then giving more money to pay the interests of the debts.
Then increasing the interests and obliging to more debts to pay the interests.
Finally stealing all what they can, making the population in misery, working for less and less, more and more.
IMF, International Mafia Federation, nobody sees that you are but a copy of the Italian Mafia.
Same breed, same ways, but you were smart enough to legalize yourself.
Nevertheless you are as criminal as the “unlegalized” Mafia.

Bustin wrote:
Jimmy DrinkH2o says “Any bicycle will do… even small ICE powered bikes and cargo bikes are appropriate technology for the times.”
the Census estimates there are roughly 79.6 million people aged 45 to 64 in America. If you divide 79.6 million by 19 years, then divide that by 365 days, you get 11,478. That’s the number of people, on average, who will turn 65 each day for the next 19 years.
It was the first generation in the history of the world to be ferried cradle to grave on infernal combustion… small ICE powered bikes, indeed.
The only problem with the ICE powered bikes is, well, everything. The technology is complete shit. The vast majority of the kits are clabbered together garbage.
Ideally you’d have a near-zero emissions modified ICE with noise suppression, greatly extended gas mileage, etc.
What you get is a jerry-rigged leafblower engine bolted to a regualr bicycle. It does neither the weedblower or the bicycle any favors.
Does America aspire to the ambiance of Calcutta during rush-hour? Hell no.

==================================================
I actually agree with some of what you wrote. At the risk of further tooting my own horn I’d say read my blog, it addresses and continues to explore exactly the issues you raise.http://alttransbikes.blogspot.com
I love the pure, sweet functionality of a well tuned bicycle and want to impact that as minimally as possible. As I grow a older I still love the the exercise I get pedaling ……but perhaps just not all the time. With that in mind, I’ve been exploring some power assist options and, I must honestly admit, without assist my time spent cycling would greatly diminish.
Power assist might be applied by an ICE, small 7 lb., quiet, efficient engines that are both EPA and CARB II compliant. There are some wonderful mini, industrial quality engines available today.
Electric assist might be applied by high output RC electric or ehub brushless motors that have regenerative braking that can be used to trickle charge a smaller_than_usual bike battery pack to keep weight down.
Better might be a combination of the two, a hybrid…..ICE/Elec equipped bike that could get 300 miles to a gallon of gasoline with minimal electric outlet charging.
Perhaps most appropriately we should make that tribrid power: human/ice/electric.
The power assisted bicycle has a 125 year history, before it morphed into bigger/faster/heavier and that is my inspiration.
Your mind is probably made up but then you’re stopped by what you know. There’s nothing to be done about that by anyone other than yourself.
Thanks for your comments.

Who’s fooling whom?? Last week while all the European “happy talk” was going on, yields on 1-year Greek notes went to 212% up from 144% just one WEEK before that. The implied probability of Greek default is ONE-HUNDRED percent. Yet even as I write this, the news media are talking about “progress” in Greek debt restructuring talks. Really? With WHICH GOVERNMENT? Who is asking THAT!? They don’t quite have one at the moment.
The problem with investing in any developed-world stockmarket is that you might, indeed, have all these numb-nuts running it up ten or even twenty percent above current levels. However, when you actually look at life on the ground in Italy, Greece, Spain, or even here in the USA where “living with Mom and Dad” at 35 is no longer as rare as a politician’s integrity, you start to understand that your downside is LIMITLESS. You’re playing Russian Roulette with your life’s savings (assuming you’re a dinosaur like me and you have some) but the gun has four bullets, not one.
Rest assured that Mr. Bernanke is viciously aiming at you savers out there because, with a clenched jaw, he’s telling you that he’s going to do everything in his power to drive you into risk assets … otherwise you’ll watch food and fuel inflate while your purchasing power decreases. Well, if Mr. Bernanke is the “irresistible force” then I’m the “immovable object” because I will
NOT buy stuff that requires a SCHEDULE D AT TAX TIME.
The problem is that the developed world, which we’re trying mightily to move OUT of, sold their souls to the globalists who don’t care that the implementation of their ideals, the foremost being outsourcing, means that the living conditions of the world’s workers are all converging toward shanty towns, small dwellings with 8 or 10 people, rents higher than monthly salaries, etc..
Take part in any and all local OWS activity or even start your own. Yes, it IS class warfare, only, for at least this brief second, WE are starting to do it back to THEM after a generation of complacency.
E.

The Recovery Causes The End of the Recovery.
***********************************************************
That’s the paradox of the current machinations of the Fed. Anybody who even casually looks at the prices of stuff may have noticed that while the Dow, after 6 yo-yo trips in two months, has finally, once again, surmounted the 12,000 mark. However, the price of the recovery IS the recovery because as the Dow rises, so does the price of OIL and FOOD.
What’s odd is that the FED created this with QE1 and QE2 and we had riots in Egypt and Yemen, not about “democracy” but about SURVIVAL. Now, the ECB has flooded the world’s banking system so it only makes sense that this will spill over here just as our QE’s spilled over to the rest of the world.
These banksters are cynical, sinister bastards who are WORSE than murderers. Instead of killing people outright, they’re making living conditions universally hellish around the globe for the 99% that are not “high net worth individuals”. The paradox, of course, lies in the phrase “net worth” because NEVER has money had less correlation with REFINEMENT and CULTIVATION than it has in this Brave New Millenium.
Little wonder that RUSSIA, a nation of mafiosi-run businesses and municipalities, has had its currency bid up recently and the Commercials have their first long ruble positions versus the dollar. Yup, ’tis true. Russia cannot stop bleeding population because despite the fall of the Berlin Wall, it appears that it sucks even MORE under “capitalism” … or at least their own faked version of it. We have our own faked version, thank you!!
The world’s economies?? We’re all LAS VEGAS NOW, BABY!!
E.

“Why do people who oppose the government pay taxes?”
Because people like yourself have empowered them to steal from your neighbors at the point of a weapon. You won’t steal from your neighbors but you are happy to allow someone else to steal from them on your behalf. Say it ain’t so.
Some of us have withdrawn our consent to be governed by the lawless. Our so-called leaders show no inclination to follow the law of the land, holding themselves above it. When we appeal to the law of the land, they ignore it and implement policies, treaties and rules, as if these have more authority than the people themselves.
Its not exactly clear what is happening here, but a few can see it plainly.

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E.
You can thank us and the Neoliberals for the “capitalism” Russia has. We screwed them royally, but I think in the end we will be the biggest losers. There will be a tipping point where everything we do is such a sham, that nothing the IMF and WTO will change the toxicity of Quadrillions of worthless paper.
I suggest you check out Zero Hedge. The last two days have been amazing–The international fraud is almost beyond belief.
—————————
Patrizia,
I don’t know whether you checked out my comment Mon am. I discussed the whole mafia thing there. “Confessions of an Economic Hitman”,”Shock Doctrine” and “Griftopia” are books that should be a required reading for anyone who wants to understand what this obscenity we call global capitalism is. They describe the same process in different ways.This thing is so out of control I can’t imagine how it can possibly continue.
I know Obama has been an abject failure to get us going in any direction that would be different from the administration before, but just remember, it’s a global disaster and the power elite can’t change the direction. O is a globalist and neoliberal just like the Republicans and most of the Democrats are, so just understand that this is the system.
Good luck finding anyone that can change this–it has to break before it can change.

Qshtik, perhaps thou dost protest too much. For one thing, don’t bring up the law. Whose law? As though “The Law” was somehow sacrosanct. What a priggish viewpoint – certainly in context for a tiresome pedant. So let me clarify what I was suggesting in my post: Madoff acquired investors because he could guarantee them unusually high returns on their investments. Did they ask themselves how he was able to do this so repeatedly? No. Why not? Simple. They did not want to know. They just wanted high returns. They didn’t care how he did it. And not asking what ought to be a normal question (“how is he able to offer such high returns?”) affords plausible deniability. So Madoff can be the Gadarene swine, absorbing their sins while they maintain innocence and the purity of driven snow. Sorry, pedant, Madoff’s investors had a duty to ask whence came such fantastic returns. In unlawful transactions(as opposed to illegal – yes, there is a difference), both parties share culpability, albeit not necessarily equally. If you perchance should buy stolen property, the act of buying it does not make it yours and, if discovered, such property must be returned to its rightful owner without compensation to you! Sounds pretty harsh, huh? Well, if you get a good deal, perhaps even a just a regualr deal, the buyer still bears the burden of being aware of its chain of custody.

Was looking over a couple of book reviews this morning and came across this little gem; “A landscape systematically vandalized by corporatocracy”. I’d say that pretty much describes our surrounds. Sounds like something JHK would write.
Anyone read “Dark Ages America, the Final Phase of Empire” by Moris Berman? I need some more uplifting lite reading…before Jim releases “The End of Magic”.
Ah, another CF’dN morning!

Convention in Charlotte…how appropriate…out of the 50 largest cities in the U.S. Charlotte ranks way down at 49th in Walkability.http://www.walkscore.com/rankings/?page=5
The Convention Center in Charlotte is across the street from the NASCAR Hall of Fame!
The Convention Center is next to the Interstate that cuts through downtown–which consists of countless number of Kunstler’s famous “parking lagoons.”
With the wall of the freeway on one side and the lagoons of parking, the Center should be defensible from the rabble. The nearby Bank of America Stadium and Time Warner Cable Arena should make excellent holding pens.
Actually, since Interstates 277 and 77 conveniently and closely ring downtown you could just seal off downtown from the foreclosed masses surrounding it.
The Federal Reserve Building is just a couple blocks from the Convention Center. Charlotte is now the 2nd largest banking center in the country. How appropriate. Maybe a lot of those Wall Streeters living in the Hamptons, Greenwich and Manhattan have a pied-a-terre in Charlotte in case they need to escape the concentrations of unhappy people in the NYC area.
The Center is sandwiched between streets named “Stonewall” and “Martin Luther King Jr.”
check out the satellite map photos on the web.
A more appropriate (even symbolic?) place could not have been picked at this point in our deterioration.
———-
Tampa gets an 89 score out of 100…but I’m a little suspicious that that just includes the core area. http://www.walkscore.com/score/tampa
Unrelated to the above, San Francisco gets a high walkability score…because those people were looking at a FLAT map. Some places that are just 6 blocks apart are a walk up and down that only a mountain climber could love–and that very few people actually walk.

Cindy,
In answer to your tearful question:
Yes, you will become crazier and crazier as time goes on, and no amount of supplication to the gods of numerology will save you.
Get along home, Cindy, Cindy; get along [to the] Home.

I smell a setup. “That woman” – thank you, Bill – has just a wee bit too much collagen and a little too much red in and on her lips. At the very least, she is angling for an “Over Fifty” centerfold gig. By setup I mean Cain has hired his accuser who will later recant, casting doubt over other accusations.
But if the accusations do end up ringing true, Cain can always use the Bill Clinton defense: He thought harrassment meant “Her Ass”.

zone, i almost think that s one of the computer trolls jim has been trying to block at any rate it might be better not to reply (at least directly), as stirring shit can only lead to the inevitable stink…

Hey O3 –
I would bet even money that Cynthia2013 is CFN’s very own 8M/NameTa/etc.
And I would bet that it was mostly 8m’s and TootSie’s antics – that cause the high settings on the CFN spam filter – that caused this comment thread to nearly collapse back last month.
OH WELL?
And to think that all 8M really wanted was buses.

We don’t look at wealth in the same way.
You look at wealth as hoarded money, earned by hard work, and deserved by the hoardee.
I look at wealth as labor working with the bounty of the Earth, (now nearly stripped), ripped off by the wealthy from the workers.
So, yes, I believe in redistribution.
As for land, Tripp’s hero, Joel Salatin, recognizes that there are kids out there, eager and ready to work, who have no land. He proposes that older farmers share their land and experience with younger would-be farmers.
As for the wealthy losing their land, they could be compensated for it, for all that. Although they are compensated richly for it now.http://www.nypress.com/article-21342-the-making-of-manhattans-elite-welfare-farmers.html
Just drop the pose of aggrieved aristocrat, Q. You aren’t one of the 1%, and it’s pathetic to watch you grovel at their feet.

Very insightful stuff about Charlotte, Erik SF.
Those delegates will be as isolated at the Democratic convention – as were those Group of Eight delegates out at Sea Island, Georgia, a few years back.
That is probably an important Law Enforcement criteria – for contentious and large scale conventions – – – When you think about it.
Thanks!

“Second, I think my view is that a wide range of economic/social/environmental outcomes are possible (some good, some not), similar to the way life usually unfolds. You seem to be quite sure a narrow outcome is assured, so that is quite different I think, and justifies a greater degree of scrutiny.”
Sure, there are plenty of ways this could go, but I don’t think there’s any automatic merit in seeing so many that you prepare for none.
No doubt it’s the ecologist in me who subscribes to the precautionary principle: dire news ought to be acted on as rapidly as possible until it is proven erroneous.
I just happen to like the actions I’ve taken in response to PO better than the consumptive life I was living before. (And even back then my nickname among my more mainstream friends was “Mr. Greenjeans.”) But, driving a Prius and eating organic are not the same thing as preparing for global energy descent. Not by a long shot. And I wouldn’t waste my time here if I didn’t have something worth selling. Energy peak or not.

Gore won in Florida, as proved by the recount.
The Democrats, known mostly as wooses, managed to mount a vicious campaign of hatred and vitriol – against Ralph Nader!
Anyone who still falls for it is probably not a skilled enough thinker to vote for anyone but one of the two corporate parties.

And I personally know two Republicans who voted for Ralph Nader in 2000. My mother-in-law, and the Marine sniper I worked with, both because George Bush was such an idiot that they went with the intelligent candidate.
I know three Democrats who voted for Ralph Nader because they were so pissed off at Gore when he supported those Cubans who had the little motherless boy locked in a closet, so he couldn’t go back to his daddy.
There were actually a lot of Republicans who voted for Ralph Nader. This is down the Democratic memory hole.
But facts don’t matter when they interfere with the Democratic storyline.

Also would say that even though panels are generally warranted for 25yrs they will certainly last much longer.
——————————————-
My understanding at that time was, that the power production began to decline after about 15 years and they were producing significantly below that by the end of 25, is that not true?

Speaking of stupid government actions – –
My understanding is that the Democratic and Republican Parties are “PRIVATE” or at least quasi-private.
That’s how Repubs in some areas can force candidates to pledge against/for certain positions (say abortion?) or else they don’t get Party funding and they can’t get ballot space.
==========================
And why do the Dems even NEED a convention next year????? Obama will certainly be the nominee.
One could hope that Democrats of all stripes will/would be so incredibly OFFENDED at the high-dollar spectacle and WASTE of it all –
So offended, that mainstream Dems would vote for the Green Party candidate in mass.
And thus eviscerate the DemocratoCorporate Party once and forever.
A man can hope, anyway.

There is the smell of unwashed humans that goes beyond normal BO. It is really foul.
The other day, I was stopped at a stoplight and a homeless guy was there. I handed him a dollar OUT of my window. His hand never came inside, yet the entire inside reeked.
However. There are times I have had homeless people in the ER, and the smell was so bad that I took them to the shower and hauled their clothes down to the basement and washed them.
Guess what? They clean up pretty good!
Especially now, homeless doesn’t necessarily mean crazy drug addict, just down on their luck in a dog-eat-dog capitalist society.
And, yes, I would rather pay more taxes to get them a modest apartment, and daily food, than have them living in the woods and begging for money.
It’s just the redistributionist in me.
Even Richard Nixon and Milton Friedman advocated a basic income for all americans.
Shows how far we’ve fallen into hatefulness.

Wage you wield a very large brush. So large that you’re incapable of articulating or shading the nuances. Does an elected president make Federal Court appointments or nominate Supreme Court justices?
Are Sonia Satomayor and Stephen Breyer the political/philosophical equivalent of Anton Scalia and Clarence Thomas? Do Supreme Court justices have societal impact? With one more high court appointment from a President Obama would the reality of “corporate person-hood” be alive and kicking?
Serious thinkers considers these types of issues before making sweeping declarations.

I just happen to like the actions I’ve taken in response to PO better than the consumptive life I was living before.
—————————————-
…and you’re liking them is good enough for me. I really admire your strength of conviction and willingness to live that conviction, against a mighty strong current heading the other way. Good Luck, I suspect you’ll be happy whatever the case.
Which brings me to another point, regarding my comments here the last few days. I want to say regarding the following:
Asoka – I think you’re more than a little confused, but I also think you have a good heart and that goes a long way with me.
turkle – you’re a hoot!
Vlad – as warped and odious as your ideas are, you at least have the guts to fly your Nazi flag from the top of your house…and you can take a punch without whining. Finally afterall, you are genuine, and that counts for something…..I guess.
Qshtik – If I could vote one person off the island, it would be you. While you’re a bigoted racist, you share none of Vlad’s short list of positive traits. You wear your Nazi uniform under your street clothes and cloak your ideas, so the polite society you live in doesn’t get who you really are. You’re ideas are like farts under a bed sheet, it takes awhile for the stink to come to the surface. By then you’ve had the opportunity to slither back under the rock where you belong.
OK, got that off my chest, carry on!

That’s a pretty good article you linked, Wage. I’m aware of some of the “welfare for the rich” involving farming and timber land ownership – because I benefit from it – on a small scale.
If they wanted to “help” legitimate family farmers – then there would be income and acreage caps (means testing?) on these sorts of programs. But there aren’t. Q will tell us that “means testing” is – – – – something bad – –
But I would like an explanation as to why “means testing” for agricultural subsidy is – – bad.
From the end of the article on agriculture programs, for those who don’t like to click links:
“No wonder America is starting to feel like a third-world country. Fighting two wars and bailing out banks is enough without having the rich plundering our country right out from under us. It’s not just property taxes, either. In the past decade, two-thirds of corporations doing business on U.S. soil paid no income taxes. The rich aren’t just not paying their fair share, they’re not paying anything at all.”

By the way, Wage –
You call my stance on reducing LEGAL immigration into the US – “bizarre.”
That’s extreme.
Population growth is the linchpin of all of the world’s problems. And it’s the driver of all the US policies that you decry – from military expenditures to the decline of US lower and middle classes.
==========================================
Even asoka. went on record last week in agreement:
“The United States needs negative population growth,” he said.
We need intelligent ways to achieve this goal – before climate change, disease, or famine –
do it for us.

You bet on the Colts in ’66, didn’t you. No lying.
===============
I have never bet on a sporting event in my life. Welll, hold on a minute, that’s not entirely true. I bet on the ponies a few times back more than 50 years ago. And to be a sporting good fellow at the office I joined in on several of those 100 square Super Bowl pools … but that’s about it.
Oooops, almost forgot … I played pool for money every weekend for about 10 years. The game was called “Chicago” (I have no idea why) and the 5, 10 and 15 numbered balls were the money balls.
About the “Ginsberg Decision,” I Googled it and, turns out it was in ’68.

No doubt it’s the ecologist in me who subscribes to the precautionary principle: dire news ought to be acted on as rapidly as possible until it is proven erroneous.
——————————————–
precautionary principle?? — I thought that was the chicken little principle. Sounds kinda stressful to me, but if it works for you,… as they say.
I have taken some precautions BTW, food storage etc. My guess is, if it gets as bad as JHK would like to have us think, it probably won’t help to have a compost heap in the back yard, when the guy next door is munching down on your carrots with an AK over his shoulder.
Maybe the best precaution I’ve taken, I’ve done without being concious of its value. That is the choice of where to live. Boise, ID is about 400 miles from everything, except Mormon potato farms. I suspect that social cohesion and other environmental factors might insulate this area from at least a short to mid-term problem, comparitively speaking to Oh….let’s say Los Angeles! Yikes!, just shut off the power there for a couple of hours and look out.

We were like you, YOU will be like us.
==
If you scratch the surface you will find that behind the IMF is the CIA, and behind the CIA is the big corporations, and behind the big corporations is the FED, and behind the FED is the Vatican. So yes, the circle is complete.

“The United States needs negative population growth,” he said.
We need intelligent ways to achieve this goal
==============
Pull the plug. Stop fighting the natural and inevitable. Stop trying to prolong negative quality of life in the aged. Compost them back into the soil.
I have instructed my wife, “when I reach that point, pull the plug.” She replies “Oh, don’t worry, I WILL!”

Once when I was in college, I lived in a “cooperative” but I found that it was not all that cooperative and mostly it was filled with hippie-types. And although I classify myself as a left-leaning Democrat, I like being clean and wearing conventional clothes. I do like material objects and have worked to acquire a few of them because they are nice to have. But I don’t need to starve 3rd world people or rape the Earth to get the money to buy luxury items. I am not in competition with my friends on who can have the most toys. We all have a few toys and that seems to be enough for each of us. It is a pleasant, ordinary life but for far too many, it seems to be slipping away. The very rich seem to want more and more and more. When will they ever be satisfied?
So I will again plant my veggie garden in the spring, encourage the use of birth control, plan to put up solar panels and vote for Obama who seems like a far better choice than any of the GOP candidates currently available. Voting for Obama may not save the Earth, may not end world hunger, may make the birthers even crazier than ever but what other choice is there? Perhaps the Tea Party will split off from the GOP to support their own radical candidates but that seems unlikely. The GOP will get the Tea Party in line by pandering to their irrational desire to end abortion and crowd the planet with yet billions more hungry, poor people. Sometimes I think self-destruction must be a gene in the human DNA.

No, prog, I was pointing out that legal immigrants do jobs americans would do (like doctors, engineers and professors) long before you started on your crusade.
What’s more, I have been advocating payment for voluntary sterilization for years.
What I called “bizarre” is your focus on this particular issue, when there are so many other more pressing issues. Life and death issues.
I really don’t see immigrants as a life and death issue.

Do you remember when they were handing out maps to Japanese tourists, showing the walk from downtown to Golden Gate Park to be an easy one? (At least for walkers).
So off the tourists trooped – right through the Fillmore District.
Whoops.

Ha, ha. Serious thinkers!
The Supreme Court, the last refuge of the desperate Democrat scoundrel.
Pinning all your hopes for a better society on one Supreme court justice is pretty pathetic evidence of the farce of a democracy we have in the US.
The Supreme Court historically has been a bastion of conservatism. FDR dealt with them, and won.
If we had a real class warrior, one on our side, she could reverse some of the massive income redistribution of the last 30 years.
But, go ahead, vote your fears. Whatever.

Qshtik – If I could vote one person off the island, it would be you. While you’re a bigoted racist, you share none of Vlad’s short list of positive traits. You wear your Nazi uniform under your street clothes and cloak your ideas, so the polite society you live in doesn’t get who you really are. You’re ideas are like farts under a bed sheet, it takes awhile for the stink to come to the surface. By then you’ve had the opportunity to slither back under the rock where you belong.

===========
Wow Dale, that’s harsh. Straight to the heart with the two ultimate accusations in American culture: racist and Nazi. Commie and redistributionist can’t even compete. I’m glad I’m not harboring such animosities against anyone here based on their opinions. There is no one I’d vote off the island. Not you, not Tootsie, not Bustin, not even Wage. Even when my eyes roll back in my head, as they often do, I enjoy everyone’s company and hearing their views.

And I get sick of the ignorant comments about Mexicans.
Like, they should stay home and fight for a better society.
The nerve of spineless americans, who passively watched two stolen elections, criticizing Mexicans, who occupied Mexico City with over a million people, protesting their stolen election!http://www.nationmultimedia.com/home/Lopez-Obrador-supporters-occupy-heart-of-Mexico-Ci-30009995.html
Americans criticizing Mexicans for their drug wars, which weren’t anywhere NEAR this bloody until the US military got its nose under the tent.
And it’s american drug appetites which feed the drug warlords in the first place, so to criticize the free market for supplying it is incredibly hypocritical.
And it was NAFTA that threw so many peasants off their land in the first place.
So, yes, I get extremely annoyed at clueless americans pointing fingers at mexicans, so it’s hard for me to get all worked up about people being here illegally.
Throw the employers in jail. That’s my solution.

It life or death for our Country – and that means it might be Life or Death in a literal sense. They are already overwhelming hospitals and social services. Isn’t that kind of life and death too? What happense when they take over whole states and start persecuting Whites? Civil War is what.
How can we hope to deal with unemployment, energy, and economic contraction when our population is exploding? And nealy all of them from a culture traditionaly hostile to our own? THAT is what Prog is saying: not that the other issues aren’t crucial, but that there’s no hope of solving them until this one is gotten under control.
Communism is very strong in Mexico and I have no doubt that you will continue to enable them. That’s where your heart is – not with America.

oh for sure. these drugs are dangerous.
i have tried several. cymbalta was poison to me
immediately a nervous wreck, and i can definitely see these drugs pushing people over the edge.
and they prescribe such high doses.
so sad about the teenager.
hugs not drugs ?
we are such a cruel society, well the system is.
most people are it seems. not all tho…..

If I can get Dale to talk to me, I’ll be able to get him off the island. I often bring out the worst in people – and that’s very painful for them (and me). Dale is trying to protect himself by ignoring me. He knows that he will have to leave again if he relents. Needless to say, Dale has an immense store of negative energy that is seeking a way out – even more than most Liberals. His Buddhism is not even touching this “treasure”.

Thank you. We both have immense troves of negative energy. I know how to turn mine into nectar even like Lord Shiva. You do not. That’s why I always defeat you in the end. Love is greater than Hate – but not other than hate. Remember what the Tantric Master William Blake said, “Opposition is true friendship”.
I read Conze’s little book on meditation years ago. I realized I was a hate/wisdom type in the Theravada schematic. Obviously the Mahayana and Vajrayana took this theme and ran with it.

A fine website. Our Traitorous Elites are now out in the open – like a deer flushed out of the thicket. It’s Endgame now. No longer having to hide, we can expect them to become increasingly brutal.
I just downloaded Anders Brevik’s 1500 page manifesto. It’s a complete critique of our Culture from many different angles. Obviously now healthy or sane culture would have just opened the gates to the Muslims or consented to become minorites in their own lands.
Before we can fight, we have to contemplate our own weakness and how we came to being on the brink of extinction.

WSP7 said “quell violence (in gas line)”
I have not visited a gas station since 2009. Total gallons of gasoline purchased since 2008: One.
My question is, what can I do to help cause more violence at gas station lines? I am interested in entertainment that fits my budget.

My wife was getting dolled up.
I asked “Where are you going?”
I’d just walked home, gingerly dodging crackling electric wires on the ground, downed poles and broken trees.
‘To see ‘Jersey Boys’. Then to dinner”
“Jersey Boys? Dinner”?, The whole state looks like a war zone!
“Oh don’t worry they’ll come soon and clean it up”
Three streets away a McMansion was burning; firetrucks couldn’t get to it.
We could see the orange glow over the tree line.
Three days in people began dying in their houses.
–WSP7

Sufiglen said “Never thought I’d see it in my lifetime, maybe Kurzweil is correct the singularity is near and will save us, if it doesn’t kill us first.”
One thing is certain. Every piece of technology anyone owns is going to be non-functioning, obsolete garbage within 10 years, no matter how beloved, how new and shiny they appear today.
The vehicles with their gas engines will mostly sit idle. And when they are driven, they will be driven fast and pelted with rocks.

I thought you were in California.
I’m surprised that no one came and cleaned it up.
Our big disaster was in May, 2009. and I’ve written before about it.
I’ve never seen so many tree trimmer trucks, or electric utility vehicles.
The abandoned Aldi’s down the street’s parking lot was filled with trucks from other states, come to help us.
If no one came to help you, 2 years later, we are WAY down the long emergency hole.

Wage I am in OzoneP territory.
BustinJ my Ruger will still be working when all else fails.
Your comment reminds me of author Paul Theroux, on his book about the rail system in China, saying when all our cell phones and big screen TVs and computers are in the scrapheap, those Chinese steam trains will still be running.
–WSP7

Tony: Janice decided to go back to Seattle.
Carmela: You’re kidding. What about Richie? He must be devastated.
Tony: Richie’s gone.
Carmela: What do you mean gone?
Tony: Gone.
Carmela: Where?
Tony: Carmela, after 18 years of marriage, don’t make me make you an accessory after the fact.
Carmela: An accessory after the…. Holy shiiit!
Tony: Stop asking.
Carmela: Oh my God! Oh my God.
Tony: I took care of it.
Carmela: That…. That was not a marriage made in heaven.
Tony: ??? this.
Carmela: After Meadow’s graduation me and Rosalie Aprile are going to Rome. For three weeks.
Tony: ‘Scuse me?
Carmela: We’re gonna stay at the Hassler. Shop. And try to see the Holy Father.
Vietnam: “We’re gonna take some time off.”
Irag: “Shop.”
Afghanistan: “See the Pope.”
We’re a gangster culture.

WTF?
You’ve not heard of Connecticut and what’s going on there in the power and destruction woild?
If not, I guess it really IS the smoke-blowin’, happy-talkin’, bullshittery mode that we had all been fearing.
No more reality, folks. Just wish for shit, remain seated and starve quietly while we eat your children (in one way or another). Bad news can make people nervous and they may “get ideas”.

Oh my lawd, WSP!
Will that be america’s response to a nat’l emergency?
“Let’s go to the show!” lol
(I know your wife is very lovable, so I can’t criticize too much.)
We got lucky, what with that ice storm pruning the trees a couple years ago.
Mom’s neighborhood just came back on-line this afternoon, so we’ll be shipping her on back to a civilized area tomorrow. ;o)

Myrtlemay didn’t start the fire; it was burnin’ since the world’s been turnin’.
Vlad commented that the Communists are big in Mexico. News to me. They’ve had almost a century of iron fisted conservative politics. Trotsky spent some time writing, hanging out with artists, and getting an axe planted in his spine, but, I wasn’t aware the commies had much traction. There was a leftist party that almost won the elections last time, and would have wrested control from the narco-terror, pro-corporate government in power. The constituency that would have voted were all out of the country… ah, “sightseeing”, with no plans to return.
Trip is continuing his real estate buying spree, and heading off to make a cob bunker in the so-called “mountains” of Georgia. Does he think we are stupid? There are no mountains in Georgia.

No. There is nobody in this country who got rich on his own — nobody… even a factory owner who became wealthy used public goods like roads, police and fire, and public education. Now look, you built a factory and it turned into something terrific, or a great idea? God bless. Keep a big hunk of it. But part of the underlying social contract is you take a hunk of that and pay forward for the next kid who comes along.

“Vlad – as warped and odious as your ideas are, you at least have the guts to fly your Nazi flag from the top of your house…”
-dale
Dale, displaying racist, mysogonistic leanings on a blog under an alias is hardly flying a Nazi flag from your rooftop. Anyone can be an asshole anonymously. I wouldn’t label it courageous.

BTW, as I had said before, TLE is already in 2nd gear. That would be the collapse of the fake “jobs market”. (Fake jobs going away, following in the wake of real manufacturing ones.) At present, the rumblings and roilings of public discontent are at their very beginnings.
Third gear will be the abandonment of faith in “the rule of law” (national/codified). No justice? No peace. (Not as a rhetorical device, either.)

I have a similar idea, but add a day to the week. The 8th day will come after Sunday, but before Monday. I call it Arborday. The day can be used as people see fit. I think we should go to a 32 hour week as standard. Combined with the 8 day week, thats one whole half-week as “weekend”. Instead of 52 weeks a year, give or take, there would be 42 weeks, 42 extra Arbordays and 42 extra days off.

===============
Whoo Boy! Where do I begin with this one? Let’s take care of the easy and more-or-less inconsequential stuff first. It’s 45.625 weeks, 45.625 extra (Arbordays) off, not 42. Let’s cover the arithmetic using reasonable rounding of numbers for simplicity.
Are we agreed that the earth spins 365 times on its axis while making 1 full circuit of the sun? Also, that under the old arrangement of seven days to the week, that comes to 52 weeks? (365/7 = 52 after rounding). And so if we re-define a week as being 8 days then 365/8 = 45.625.
Now, I have a question … when the workers of America get this windfall of 45 (or 46 if you want to round up) more days time off each year do they still continue to get the typical 2, 3, or 4 weeks vacation and (usually) 10 days of holidays? Keep in mind that 2 weeks translates to 10 business days and to 80 hours. So, the old timer getting 4 weeks vacation and 10 days of holidays under the old (i.e. the current) system actually gets 240 hours of time off. These numbers are BEFORE sick time which vary all over the lot from company to company.
Before we get into the reduction of a work week to 32 hours let’s just convert the 45 days at a rate of 8 hrs per day. That comes to 360 hrs. If these hours are in addition to the 240 they used to get off rather than in lieu of 240 hours then the total time off comes to 600 hours … a 150% increase in time off. The typical work year before any time off is 2080 hrs (52 x 40 = 2080). The long-term employee who had worked himself up to the maximum 4 weeks vacation therefore would work 1840 hrs in a year (assuming zero sick time used). In the new scheme that same person would work 1480 hrs.
Next question: does the employee continue to receive the same amount of pay for working these lesser hours or is he “docked” the pay for those unworked hours?
If the workers pay is docked due to the 360 fewer hours worked in a year he is unable to maintain the “style” of living that has evolved based on a higher dollar amount of pay. But he can NOT reduce his style of living commensurately because a high percentage of his costs are “fixed” in things like a home mortgage, car payments, public utilities and local property taxes. The “discretionary” portion of pay is only partially discretionary. It is unlikely he can cut back 50% on food.
If docking the workers pay is NOT what you envisioned then he continues to get his usual pay and the employer has to absorb the cost. Your scheme’s entire purpose is to spread the work hours to the unemployed and under-employed who have been “pounding the pavement.” Roughly, for each 4 current employees the employer will need to higher 1 new employee, a 25% increase in headcount and labor cost. If the employer is competing for business with a company in a country that is not burdened with a sudden 25% increase in labor costs HOW DOES HE COMPETE?
He can’t, and his business will migrate to China, India, Brazil, etc. In a company with 100 full time employees you will go, first, to 125 under-employed employees and finally to NO employees when the work moves to the third world.
Your plan, Bustin, brings to mind the old aphorism: “The road to hell is paved with good intentions.”
And I haven’t even touched on the massive change that converting the country to an 8 day per week calendar would entail. (The US couldn’t even convert to the metric system.) It would be totally impractical if the entire world didn’t change. First obstacle: changing the Bible to say God made the world in 7 days and rested on the 8th.

Q.,
All very nicely and neatly done (aside from the extra worker being hoisted somehow, or being plied with drugs; as in “higher”), but it all depends on the business-as-usual model. There’s your trouble, right there in the very clay. The psychology of previous investment monkey is firmly affixed to your back, regardless of the parameters of time-at-the-grindstone.

Recently came across a letter written to a Springfield, Mass. newspaper in 1817, complaining about mass emigration out of S. New England at that time, to ‘New Connecticut” along Lake Erie in N Ohio.
Reasons for emigration.
1) Climate change. 3 straight years with hardly any summer, low crop yields and starvation.
2) Lack of fuel. By 1800 every usable tree in S New England had been cut down. Also Whales being hunted to extinction for their oil.
Get this, the letter ends with the author imploring someone to come up with a new form of fuel.
Sound familiar?
Folks, crude oil is the ‘alternative energy’.
—WSP7

The internationalist overlords have been busy since, oh, say, 1980 or so with implementing the kinds of disaster capitalism policies here in the US that were so successful for them during the 1960’s and 1970’s and beyond in the so-called Third World, mostly South America to start with.
This includes privatization schemes, selling off of state assets, dismantling of the social safety net, wide open financial markets, militarization of the police, attacking worker’s unions, demonizing the poor and homeless, and polarization of political discussion into the capitalists versus the evil commies. The chickens have come home to roost, you might say.
Or perhaps I’m just reading Disaster Capitalism too much before bedtime (great book that).

q: “If the employer is competing for business with a company in a country that is not burdened with a sudden 25% increase in labor costs HOW DOES HE COMPETE?”
He doesn’t under my plan. International trade for technology and commodities is throttled. Scientific panels construct technology targets, and no consumer goods are made until research and development, along with manufacturing, hits those targets. This avoids the bulk of waste generated by intermediate technology.
My thesis is that the consumer driven, international trade style of economy must come to an end for life to continue on the planet.
“He can’t, and his business will migrate to China, India, Brazil, etc. In a company with 100 full time employees you will go, first, to 125 under-employed employees and finally to NO employees when the work moves to the third world.”
This is the simple fate of first world economies in an environment of global corporate dominance. It is essentially business running not just your entire economy, but your entire country. The individual’s ideas of what constitutes a good life is just disregarded. Yet this is the project of civilization. People did not die storming a Beach so that GE is free to move its factories to another country.
It is becoming more an more obvious to me that there is nothing in it (the global economy) for my welfare. If the global economy constitutes a mortal threat to me, why should I support it?
The 8-day week and its intersection with the contemporary parameters of the current coersive system doesn’t present itself with any dilemmas to me. The guy that slaves away 2080 hours a year, being a cog in the machine, at a job he can’t stand, for a company threatening to leave the country at the earliest opportunity, can fuck off.
I tried to explain guaranteed incomes to people recently. The immediate response was along the lines of “Who will work at McDonald’s”? My answer was, what if no one HAD to work at McDonald’s?
The problem is simple: consumer-driven global trade, with the assumption that everyone’s interests and best intentions are served by global corporate competitive markets is wrong as soon as you can show ecological damage threatening life as we know it. That milestone has occurred and the system “en toto” is up for reconsideration.
I am cheered by the recent analysis that the domestic US economy could function, supplying all our needs should it simply choose to disconnect from the International economy.
At some point people are going to ask (probably after our economy tanks due to Eurozone/China.further coutsourcing) what is the benefit of global trade? And those companies that want to leave the US should be invited to do so.
We should move to nationalize all assets and federalize all corporate charters.
Its critical to start as soon as possible if we want to survive.
After we purge the government and economy of global corporate influences, we can then be in a position to dictate to other countries the actions we will and will not tolerate. For example, if China does not get on a carbon budget, we should shoot down all their satellites and put cruise missiles on all their coal-fired power plants.

“and i can definitely see these drugs pushing people over the edge.”
I saw some ad for a ‘scrip to treat psorriasis the other day, and the list of “side effects” included “increased cancer risk”! Oh, and in rare cases stroke and death. To treat psorriasis!
I don’t understand the toxin worship in this country. If it ain’t strong it ain’t any good! Herbalists don’t start with the rocket-propelled grenade, and then back off if they damage the target; they start with the pea shooter and step up to the wrist rocket if absolutely necessary. I’ve never found herbal medicine to be insufficient for non-trauma problems.
My wife’s herbal skin cream heals psorriasis (among about 50 other things), quickly too, and it’s food grade!! It’s list of “side effects” might include the desire to get a cracker to spread some on…
We have got to stop worshipping poison for its strength!

funny !
you luv my pies !
i told my friend who makes great pies what you said, and she doesn’t believe it.
i believe what you said about guys and pies.
you are funny sometimes.
i’m not on here so much, but now and then.
been busy with ‘real’ life so to speak.

I dunno, Sweden seems pretty nice, and I believe it is about as socialist as they come. Russia isn’t really a very good example of a good planned economy, as the Communist dictatorship just seemed to continue the culture of the Czars and the Mongols under a different name.

“Let’s take care of the easy and more-or-less inconsequential stuff first. It’s 45.625 weeks, 45.625 extra (Arbordays) off, not 42. ”
Shit! For a second there I thought we had finally discovered the ultimate question! Damn, damn, damn.
Rest in peace, Douglas Adams.

Ya Jim was impressed by Sweden, too.
I had a girlfriend from Sweden in college. She told me it was cold and dark there, not fit for human habitation 9 months out of the year. The whole family emigrated here.
–WSP7

Dale, displaying racist, mysogonistic leanings on a blog under an alias is hardly flying a Nazi flag from your rooftop. Anyone can be an asshole anonymously. I wouldn’t label it courageous.
——————————-
good point.

nicely and neatly done (aside from the extra worker being hoisted somehow, or being plied with drugs; as in “higher”),
================
Oh shit … 2 mistakes in 2 days … after going error-free since the Ginsberg Decision in ’68.
But on to substance. If I get your drift you think I’m stuck in some old paradigm and need to think outside the box. Maybe so. Give me a hint. Where is the fallacy in my logic?

i could go for your basic income for all in return for the voluntary sterilizations you advocated a couple of months back. All income groups have ability and responsibility to contribute to a better society in their on way.
we are all to blame for our situation . rich , middle and poor.

“we are all to blame for our situation . rich , middle and poor.”
Perhaps, but not equally. Those with the most money have the most power and hence the most influence on the direction of society.
I mean, do you really think that a guy living in a box under an overpass bears equal “blame” as a multi-billionaire who owns entire corporations and is able to easily manipulate the policies of governments?

Myself, I believe that the reason many of these problems never get solved is that people aren’t talking about the same things.
For example, liberals never understand punishment, they always think criminals need psychoanalysis and job training. They come out of the woodwork when the state tries to execute somebody, whining to beat hell, as though every murder was done with compassion and anesthesia. They can put up with 15 thousand murders a year, but not an execution.
On the other hand, conservatives never seem to grasp that everything in life isn’t there for some sonavabitch to make a lot of money. Minimum wage laws, child labor laws, job safety, the forty hour week, these things were done because they were the right thing to do for many people, not because it was good for somebodies Goddamn corporate bottom line. Conservatives think everything should turn a profit, they don’t give a fuck about people. And the ones usually bitching about ‘welfare’, are the ones who never came close to needing it.
It’s usually the same with twerp war mongers, are their kids the ones getting their balls shot off, not usually.

Most liberals have no problem with long prison sentences for violent crimes and will tell you that if you ask them. Where you lose them (or at least me) is the draconian sentencing for victimless crimes like drug use or dealing. Approximately 2/3 of the people in prison are there because of non-violent drug offenses. Not only is this overly harsh, we simply can’t afford it anymore. Additionally, imprisoning so many people has created a permanent underclass that can’t vote, in many cases can’t receive public assistance, and in most cases, cannot find jobs. Rehabilitation and reintegration into society is far more cost effective than simply locking them up again when they inevitably return to a life of crime, because they have no other good options (except to shrivel up and die).

Trevor Writes:
At the end of Three Days of the Condor the guy who is not Robert Redford, the guy who is the evil CIA operative who has been trying to ‘bring him home’ throughout the film – which we have guessed is a euphemism for ‘take him out’ – is talking about why the CIA does bad, manipulative things in the world. He tells Redford that it is simple economics and anyway, what would Redford expect them to do? Redford says he should ask the American people first. The CIA man looks at Redford in the way so many people do when confronted with the naivety of the person they are talking to, but finally replies, “Ask them when there’s no heat and they’re cold. Ask them when their engines stop. Ask them when people who have never known hunger start going hungry. Want to know something? They won’t want us to ask them. They’ll want us to get it for them.”
The whole way through this most remarkable book I found myself thinking of that line and that last scene from Three Days of the Condor. This is one of the most fascinating books I’ve read in quite a long time. It reads like a Le Carre novel or something by Graham Green, and yet it is autobiographical.
A young man becomes drawn into international finance and has the role of convincing third world countries (particularly the leaders of these countries) to take out loans that are so huge their countries will never be able to repay them. They do this so as to ensure that these countries become satellites orbiting the American Empire. His job was to make these countries compliant, dependent, and endlessly economically exploitable.
Perkins asserts that the economic hit men were potentially only phase one of what could become a three phase attack on the democratic rights and independence of foreign nations. If bribing the leaders of countries with massive loans they could never repay didn’t work, then the jackals were sent in to kill selected targets and to create mayhem that would ensure the ‘right’ people would be put into power. If this didn’t work, then US troops were sent in. He gives instance after instance of where this pattern was applied in Latin America, the Middle East and Asia over a period of about three decades. It would be hard to imagine someone from the US reading this book without a growing sense of shame. It is hard to read this book from anywhere in the first world without feelings of responsibility, disgust and self-loathing. He reminds us continually that our lavish and unsustainable life style is only possible by the exploitation unto death of large parts of the globe.
This is also a remarkably well written autobiography – if Noam Chomsky was to make up a character who walked the path of evil before converting and walking the path of righteousness, he’s have come up with someone pretty much like John Perkins. Perkins does not come out of this book a saint, but he does come out of it a bit of a hero – I think.
It surprises me more I can say that this book ever got published. I believe we live in times when global capitalism is so cocksure of its pre-eminence and unassailability that it doesn’t even bother to cover up its deeds. I think I preferred it when the rulers of the world at least pretended they were concerned we might overthrown them if we caught them at their cheating. I think I preferred it when they would lie to us, if for no better reason than purely out of shame. Now they don’t even bother to treat us to that level of respect. We have become completely contemptible. Where they can do whatever they like and then rub our noses in it and we will only shake our heads and complain about how powerless we are.
This really is a fascinating book, fascinating in the literal sense of having one’s attention stolen as we read. Like I said, this reads like a spy novel, but made even more compelling by it being true.
This book demands to be read.

What will America look like a year from now?
Nothing like today.
International Banker Ponzi game is coming to a end. More debt in the world than assets. The reset button will be set and it will be ugly.
JP Morgan and Goldman Sachs have over 100 trillion in derivatives. This fraud is the biggest crime in the history of the world.

“What I called “bizarre” is your focus on this particular issue, when there are so many other more pressing issues. Life and death issues.
I really don’t see immigrants as a life and death issue.”
-wage, on my insistence on reducing LEGAL immigration into the United States ASAP-
Wow, Wage – thank you so much.
Just when I think I can’t learn anything more about myself from this CFN blog – you and I come up with this.
I am a tree farmer. My dad was a tree farmer. My granddad was a tree farmer. My view of the future is that of a tree farmer.
30 years – which, apparently seems like a long time to you and to most folks, is only one crop cycle (southern yellow pines are fast growing trees) for me.
If my grandfather, my dad, or I screwed up something important in the past, or today – then I accept the responsibility that my own children or grandchildren WILL pay the price.
This view of the future – as something that happens slowly, but with immensely important consequences – is second nature to me; and apparently very rare in average Americans.
=========================
Shift to immigration. Sure, someone can argue that it’s not a problem for us in 2011. The lights are on, law enforcement is well supplied with weapons and gasoline, and the food trucks are running reliably.
I foresee a future – maybe in 50 days, in 50 months, or in 50 years –
Where the lights go out, the food trucks stop running, and the police (and even the military) lose control of wide swaths of the US – urban, suburban, and rural.
ALL of the world will be MUCH better off – if the US faces that future with the lowest possible population. Thus, reducing LEGAL immigration rates TODAY, is the only sane course.
This will make life slightly less desperate for any potential survivors, who happen to live in the US – in 50 months or 50 years.
It also makes US demands on world resources – whether extracted by our Corporations to supply US Citizens – or coerced by our Military to supply Military Demands AND “protect” US citizens –
Lower total US population makes US demands less likely to cause ecosystem collapse that will make human life on earth – impossible.
If there’s a flaw in my logic – someone needs to point it out – without recourse to Pollyanna or a vague Hope that things will turn out OK – somehow.

So these people will be consuming resources where ever they are, whether it be in America or another country. I don’t see how it matters. There’s nowhere to run and hide. And if your argument is that Americans consume more resources than other people, this is not likely to be the case in the mega-collapse scenario you envision, where resource consumption among the pleebs will be (more or less) equalized throughout the world.
I think there’s actually much better arguments against allowing people to enter and live here illegally than the kind of roundabout ecological argument you present. You could also make similar arguments that legal immigration should be throttled. This is well worn territory so I won’t bother spelling it out.

“mega-collapse scenario you envision, where resource consumption among the pleebs will be (more or less) equalized throughout the world.”
-turkle-
Turkle, man, you are crazy if you think American politicians won’t use Corporate power and American military power to keep US residents (plebes or not) as well fed and well supplied as possible – so as to keep themselves in power for as long as possible.
HELL, Turkle – they are already doing it – and have been since at least 1942.
====================
And if you’ve got a better ecological argument against legal and illegal immigration – spell it out, man, spell it out. Because I’ve never heard it from you.
From Bustin (we’re all gonna DIE) J – yes, but not from you, Turk.
Let’s hear what you’ve got.

“….better arguments against allowing people to enter and live here illegally than the kind of roundabout ecological argument you present…”
-turkle-
Anyway, Turkle reread my post. I’m not trying to make an ecological argument – except that I don’t want the US to be the main cause of global collapse because of immigration fueled population growth.
My argument is, rather, that I’d rather face collapse (or famine, or civil war, or plague, or death) in a country of 313,000,000 – than in a country of 400,000,000 PLUS, PLUS.
Because EVERYONES’S statistical chance of survival is greatly increased – by lower US population.

I was basically using your scenario…
“Where the lights go out, the food trucks stop running, and the police (and even the military) lose control of wide swaths of the US – urban, suburban, and rural.”
If that occurs, how could the US standard of living not fall drastically? Color me confused. Actually, if it gets that bad, with food shortages and what-not, you’d likely see a population decrease as in post-Soviet Russia.
My main arguments against immigration would not be ecological. Population control is the key issue, which won’t occur anyways, because humans are obsessed with the freedom to breed, and it is hard-wired into our genes to procreate. Worrying about immigration is like shifting around deck chairs on the Titantic, IMHO.
I am actually a pretty deep doomer, based on what I know about Peak Oil and Climate Change. I’m not a very hopeful person, especially about the distant future (say 50 or 100 years). I just don’t really advocate totalitarianism. The chips will fall where they may. There’s really not much to be done about it by any one person. At least, that’s how I see it.

For the first time, the Green Party of the US will be fronted by an aggressive Marijuana/hemp/medical Cannabis activist, Jill Stein, MD.
Jill Stein is a true Progressive with a strong voice for a sound economy, peace, justice, equality, workers’ rights, and environmental integrity and she is running for President of the United States.http://www.jillstein.org/stein_opposes_keystone_pipeline
Jill Stein will end the wars, end the Drug War, end the Obama Death Squads, end the environmental destruction. She is a dedicated courageous valiant crusader, just when we need one!

You are kidding yourself, prog! Get off your high horse. The US already is and will be the source of major environmental catastrophe, as we use 25% of the planet’s resources and apparently, according to Dick Cheney, don’t intend to stop anytime soon. We have already launched highly destructive wars based on acquiring carbon fuel resources, primarily in Iraq. Our government has refused to implement any meaningful checks on carbon emissions. Many people are still driving around gargantuan Land Boat SUV Cruisers to get their fried chicken and Cheez Doodles at the supermarket. There is a whole contingent of know nothings in this country that believe Climate Change isn’t even real and that Peak Oil is a conspiracy of the oil companies to defraud them. The Jesus freaks even think that God put the earth here so we could have dominion over it.
So get real, already! You live in the wrong country to be getting so damn sanctimonious about this stuff.

WSP7 said, “Hey BJ, what if there are some people who don’t want to go along with your well thought out plan?”
Guaranteed minimum income makes sure people have the lower orders of Maslow’s fulfilled so they can generate actual value and fulfill their human potential.
Hows that global economy working out for you? Its killing the planet, allowing capital to flee the country, has reduced our sovereignty, subverted the government, and turned us all into servile peons. The rat-race of dog-eat-dog capitalism means your “quality of life” could easily go to negative zero. You are instructed to consume and obey, or go to jail. You have the choice between meaningless work which has no future or being cast off from society. Make no mistake, we are not out of the 20th century woods yet. Just about everything is a warmed over repeat of the past’s horrendous mistakes.
As markets were opened, and regulations (planning!) were removed, corporations just took the money and ran. They sold everyone out. They are here to make money off of ‘consumers’. They don’t care about ‘citizens’. They get irritated every time ‘citizens’ start formulating plans to help themselves. They don’t care about America- its all about their investor’s stock price. They own the government. They lock voices and choices out of the political system. They have taken over the planet and are actually killing us.
This what not what Jefferson, Adams, and Washington had in mind. They would not approve. There is something called the bill of rights, and if we want more rights on that bill, apparently, all we have to do is revolt. Sounds good to me.
“How about “planned economies” Bustin J, like say, Stalins 5 year planned economy in 1932 in the Soviet Union? What do they engender?”
Actually it engendered the rapid industrialization of that country. There were millions killed for purely paranoid political reasons which had nothing to do with the economic theory. It doesn’t have to happen that way. A period of adjustment (5 years sounds right) would be required to build all the factories we need to reignite the productive capacity of this country and get us on a road toward true sustainability. Internal competition could drive all the innovation we need to get us to the levels of technology we need to be at to solve the problem of the world’s population killing us all.
When it comes down to it, either we have a weak America, and the world degraded to destruction by a headless corporate machine, or we have a strong America, and the world rescued from the mindless production of leisure and luxury items. As it is now I just see America trading away its influence and advantages. I see America as controlled entirely by corporate interests. The health and welfare of its people are secondary at best. Corporations don’t concern themselves with any concept of quality of life it doesn’t link directly to itself as a system. Therefore we are taught that we can’t have an 8 day week, or time to be with our children or families. We are taught to accept that “creative destruction” in the economy is a good thing. But anyone knows just stepping back how hollow and short-sighted and materialistic it all is, how vain and selfish corporate motives are. Part of the big lie is that all other options aren’t any good. Its the global corporate system or else!
If we contracted into a national economy, there would be massive repercussions. For example, coffee would be hard to find. Capitalists would scream “I told you so” but necessity is the mother of invention. We synthesize the caffeine, and Trip grows a bumper crop of chicory in the “mountains of Georgia”. In 5 years we are all drinking domestic synthetic coffee. In 5 years we are enjoying a domestically produced iPad(4?). We are converting to solar big time.
Oh yeah- I loves me some planned economy. The unplanned economy has all the wasteful, oil and gas industry developing going on, the big road to nowhere. The debt morass. This global economy thing has got to go. We have to figure out how to save ourselves, and then work on helping other nations. As it stands we are a danger to ourselves and the planet.

Vlad, I can’t seem to find your comment about Ianto Evans’ book “The Hand-Sculpted House” – perhaps it’s a mental relic from last week – but I very highly recommend it. Like right up there with Schumacher, Fukuoka, and Toby Hemenway’s permaculture book. Speaking of, I was deep in a re-read of “The One Straw Revolution” when Evans’ book arrived, having trouble wrapping it up after 5 weeks of what should’ve been a 3 day read, and I have barely put Evans’ book down since. It’s laid out like a text book; not like Mollison’s “bible”, so huge, but 4 columns on the open pages still. I’m about 100 pages in after just a few days, and, considering the fact that I often read every sentence twice, making good progress. It’s the first thing that’s lit me up like this in a while.
Where we are in the world right now, so many people, such desperate times, so much unemployment and homelessness, would it not be useful and empowering to get the message that you can actually build your own house for less than 10k dollars? And not just a house, but the kind of house that speaks to humans on a cellular level. The kind of house we built for ourselves throughout our migration and settlement of planet Earth, up until fairly recently. A beautiful house that cradles its inhabitants, and, properly designed and placed, almost eliminates the need to heat and cool the space. How much better off would we be if we did away with both rent/mortgage and heating/cooling in our budgets?
As Evans points out, the etymological meaning of the word mortgage is “death pledge.” And I no longer have any interest in enriching the banks at my own expense.

James Howard Kunstler replied to comment from NuYawkFrankie | November 7, 2011 9:33 AM | Reply
NUYAWKFRANKIE writes: You had to pathetically try to defelect attention & settle for weasel worlds like “Jesus terrorists” didnt you Jim?
I consider the New Apostolic Reformation org, and others like it (along with their candidate fronts, such as Perry, Bachman, Palin), to be a danger to our society. They are Jesus Terrorists.
–JHK
Jim:
What is a ‘Jesus Terrorist”, anyway? You are promoting a Jew in the WH. Who the hell terrorized JC in the first place?
Further, if you think Bloomberg is not in bed with the crooked banksters, think again. World History is loaded with evidence of corruption at the hands of his ilk.
This country is toast. Give Obummer the job for another four. Finish the old gray mare off. Start over. Rebuild her in a sustainable fashion.
Best,
Joe Headrick
PS Do you have any good recipes in “World Made By Hand”? When your belly button is about a half inch away from your spinal column, they’ll likely come in handy. You and I are roughly the same age. We will both live long enough to see lifes coming attraction. You have skillfully written in detail about such a future. I know you know its a’ comin’.

“If that occurs, how could the US standard of living not fall drastically? Color me confused.”
-turkle-
Turkle – I’m advancing a two part argument.
One – the US population will be the LAST population on the planet to experience a drastic fall in standard of living. I can present arguments for this – related to our political systems and military power – but these arguments seem self-evident to me.
Two – The larger US population (unable/unwilling to sacrifice because of # “One” argument above – may be the extra nudge that takes global ecosystems over the edge to the point that human life becomes impossible.
======================
Beyond that – how can the US be an advocate for population control worldwide – when we are allowing our OWN population to increase much faster than any other 1st world country????
================
I understand you’re a 50 to 100 year doomer as regards humanity on Earth. I understand the arguments.
I choose to fight for a better future (or at least a chance at life) for humans in 100 years.
And the best way I see to to it is to work with the asoka.’s of the world on new ideas.
“We need negative population growth in the United States,” as asoka. says.
I cannot see a single reason not to work, hard, to achieve this goal.

Met mentioned: “If bribing the leaders of countries with massive loans they could never repay didn’t work, then the jackals were sent in to kill selected targets and to create mayhem that would ensure the ‘right’ people would be put into power. ”
The psychology of the progfessional soldier is the ultimate corporate man. He will go anywhere and do anything as long as he can.
Boys are brought up to aspire to be ass-kickers. They fill the ranks of the military. On its face, the proposition to dodge bullets and IED’s for what they pay shows that it is not the cash inducement that hooks them, its the rush you get by holding a machine gun and killing people.
These hit squads are on the public payroll, torturing people with electric wires and raping women and children, and its all secret. The psychology is potent; these guys were hand picked from the military because they are obedient and willing to be the killer robots they are. Testosterone is an amazing thing. It allows you to not particularly care about the fate of your society, or democracy. It allows you to cynically accept that human societies are essentially animalistic hierarchies, and accept one’s assigned role (alpha male). A few of these guys snap out of it; Stan Goff comes to mind.

Hot Water
Good short interview of Erin Brokovich on Dylan Ratigan today. You can see the segment on Dylan
s MSNBC site.
Brockovich has a new novel out called “Hot Water”. Deals with the issue of nuclear reactors and the cases of Cancer clusters and other diseases relating to the locations of the reactors.
She also discusses how dangerous Fracking is and how we take municipal water supplies for granted when so many Americans still use well water. It takes many millions of gallons of water in conjunction with chemicals per well. This effects the ground water and aquifers and we will have water shortages in the future as well.
She said she will be working with Google to develop an interactive map which shows where the problems are nationally.

ProCon, I am shifting my position on immigration a little bit.
I am willing to give in to the reality of borders. I now believe international borders should be recognized as areas of bi-national interdependence and international border areas should be authentic fair trade zones where people are free to travel across borders for work, shopping, or recreation.
I believe immigrants should have the right to receive medical care,education,housing and access to all available public benefits and services.
I support legalization programs to provide immigrants with the ability to obtain permanent residency status.
I favor a reduction of the private and public militarization of the U.S.-Mexican border and protection against intimidation by public officials or private individuals.
The legalization time line should be fair,simplified,transparent,affordable and attainable within five years after entry. Immediate and full legalization should be offered for all immigrants and their families currently residing in the United States.
Enforcement of immigration laws is the responsibility of the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency (ICE). All immigrants should have the right to be secure in their houses and protected against unreasonable search and seizure and to be protected against arbitrary arrest or detention based on racial or cultural profiling.
Interpreters should be available in emergency rooms,hospitals and healthcare clinics.
I support policies that restore and guarantee the civil rights provided for under the Constitution of the United States,which specifically states that the rights apply to all persons residing in the United States,must apply to all races and ethnicities equally.

The internet is the last refuge of free speech having been driven out of Academia by the Marxists and Race Hustlers. But for how much longer will the Internet remain free? People like you are working to destroy this last bastion of Western Culture. Hate never sleeps.

“ProCon, I am shifting my position on immigration a little bit.” asoka.
Awesome, asoka., shifts in position, if genuine, only occur when thought is occurring.
So, how about some ideas for helping the United States achieve negative population growth, as you recommended an a post last week?

“We need negative population growth in the United States,” as asoka. says.
==================
Yes, this has been my position for over 40 years and is the reason I got a vasectomy. I did not want “replacement” procreation. I wanted a negative growth… no replacement of Asoka.
Nevertheless, I favor all the things Wage has said also. It must be voluntary. It should be subsidized. Abortion and birth control should be freely available. Women should be given every opportunity for education and should be empowered so they make the decisions over their bodies.

I don’t care about working towards zero population growth, because it is like banging your head against the wall. No one is going to listen to you. Procreation is wired into our very genes. People will not stop creating children unless they are forced by government policy or sanctions, which is considered a no-go area by nearly all the world’s politicians. Or the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse are going to sort this problem out in a Malthusian fashion. The earnest efforts of people like you will not made one shred of difference (no offense). It is like telling people to stop eating.
This is already happening in Africa, where infant mortality is quite high in some places. Even then, the fastest growing populations on the planet are in already overpopulated places (at least ecologically speaking) like Africa and the Middle East. What does this tell you? People are not going to stop having children until Nature forces their hand, and even then they may still breed like rabbits in order than a few of their many offspring survive. That’s just how it works: fast, cheap, and out of control. People are obsessed with continuing “their” genes. Read The Selfish Gene by Dawkins. If they weren’t, then they wouldn’t be here in the first place.
Sorry to pour on the doom and gloom, but I just think these high-minded ideas that you’ll be able to have any appreciable influence on the behavior of 7 billion+ people is quite naive. It is virtually impossible to get anyone to concede a point on the Internet, much less convince them not to do something that is biologically hard-wired.

I share your enthusiasm having seen the book. I’ve always yearned for something like that and seeing the book reminded me of my own desire. But Permaculture books are so expensive. I decided to wait a bit and see if I could get a used one for less. It’s probably a vain hope.
Everything is so unnatural in moderern life. The Quabbin Reservoir in Massachusetts was created over three whole towns. Could they do today considering modern building materials?
I was also wondering what happened with your situation on the 300 acres – something bad or just a desire to have your own land? If you don’t wish to get into it, that’s fine.

Procreation is wired into our very genes.
===============
No it isn’t. Among married women aged 15–44 years in 1995, 41 percent were surgically sterile (15.3 million women), 26 percent reported having a tubal ligation, 7 percent had a hysterectomy, and 12 percent were currently living with a husband or partner who had a vasectomy.
So many millions of people surgically sterilized by choice kind of argues against procreation being “hard-wired” … we are not machines. As rational human beings we are capable of overcoming our animal instincts.

How is this any different than what you already believed? At least your previous viewpoint was an honest reflection of your real belief, namely no borders. Now you pay lip service. All the Churches practice the same verbal hypocrisy.

I think if that you keep pressing these blue-eyed reptiles, these fascist imperialist scumfucks, which is what they are, sooner or later they will realize that what they are doing will not pass and that they better reform or become ostracized and outcast by the rest of the world. If you press them, you will affect change in their behavior.

Where do you get these statistics, asoka? There is absolutely no way I’ll believe that 41 percent figure.
At any rate, that’s presumably just the US. The situation in much of the rest of the world is vastly different.
I will concede the point that we can overcome our biological programming (sometimes), but machines would not be the word I’d use. Instead, animals, which we clearly are.

SOURCE: Female Sterilization: Summary of Surgical Sterilization in the United States: Prevalence and Characteristics, 1965-1995 issued by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
You have to add all the percentages for different forms of voluntary sterilization to get to 41%
The need to breed is waning. It is not hard-wired. Economic and educational factors influence decisions to have a child, not just hormones.

animals, which we clearly are.
============
Of course we are animals. But a different kind of animal from the ones you see on Discovery Channel. A rational animal, capable of reasoning, an animal aware of its own mortality and capable of making a decision not to procreate.

What was that movie that used pies as the basic motif? Was it “The Waitress”?
A good pie is a thing of beauty – an apt symbol for both time and eternal life. Just looking at its circular perfection is to contemplate eternity. Eating it is part of time – and it’s gone in no time!
You might also enjoy Stephen King’s “Thinner” for a look at how bad bad pies can be.

You guys exchanged 1000 Palestinians for one, ONE Israeli prisoner. Whatever happened to no negotiation with terrorists? You have fallen, gone soft, and their triumph is just a matter of time. My Blue Eyes can see it. And don’t it make you brown eyes blue?

Global population is still growing and is projected to reach around 9 or 10 billion in 2050. Given that the world is already in deep population overshoot, due to agricultural systems being primarily based on fossil fuels, 7 billion people is already “too many” in terms of long-term ecological health of the planet, much less 2-3 billion on top of this. This should seem obvious to you (does it?) by looking at depletion of ocean fisheries, degradation of the environment, air pollution including CO2, shrinking farmlands, food crisis, massive levels of poverty, etc.
The question is not whether we can make the choice to procreate (some of us can) but if enough of us will to make any appreciable difference in the outcome that will follow this population overshoot. The data argues against it.

Nice segue, JackieBlue2U! Yes, it was the Waitress and here are two pies Turkle might not know about, but go along with the CDC statistics Turkle cannot believe:
I Don’t Want Earl’s Baby Pie
Baby Screamin’ Its Head Off In The Middle of the Night & Ruinin’ My Life Pie

Global population is still growing and is projected to reach around 9 or 10 billion in 2050.
========================
Jeez, Turkle, we went over this last week. Maybe you are not paying attention.
Global population projections have the world population leveling off and stabilizing in 2079 and 2080, then decreasing until 2100.
Global population is not going to be “9 or 10 billion in 2050″ or even in this century … the demographers have spoken (Tripp and I had a discussion about how they arrived at the projections using mortality, fertility, etc.) and I cited my source on that, too.

I don’t normally cross-post, but I wrote some on-topic short story fiction a while back that people over at ZeroHedge seemed to enjoy, maybe someone here will like it too.http://madscienceunlimited.com/fiction/
Links at the bottom of the page.
Mostly harmless. Funny, and a little racey at times. Quite disturbing at others. The world of the destroyers is textured with pleasure, friendship and casual annihilation.
Enjoy! c@

I got my data from the mid case in the UN population growth study.http://www.un.org/esa/population/publications/longrange2/WorldPop2300final.pdf
By 2100, there’s going to be roughly zero oil supplies left, which will have decimated world agricultural production, and this doesn’t even take into account the potentially catastrophic effects of Climate Change, which is likely to be along the lines of scientists’ worst projections.
So, I’d agree that population will be falling off at some point in the 21st century, though it may be more like dropping off a cliff than a gentle downward slope.

By 2100, there’s going to be roughly zero oil supplies left, which will have decimated world agricultural production
===============
No, before 2100.
Hence, mortality.
Hence, no world population of “9 or 10 Billion” this century.

“I don’t care about working towards zero population growth, because it is like banging your head against the wall. No one is going to listen to you. Procreation is wired into our very genes.”
-turkle-
Bustin, Turkle, Asoka.
I am working towards zero population growth INSIDE the United States. The goal is achievable – “all” we have to do is curtail LEGAL and illegal immigration into the United States.
The goal is Replacement Level Immigration – that achieves ZPG within the US, quite rapidly, as the latest and last round of immigrants achieve the education, female empowerment, etc – that is demonstrated to take birthrates to near ZPG, in countries around the world – that are at or above the minimum required socioeconomic level.
===========================
If the US fails to do this, it puts us in an untenable and arrogant position – demanding other countries do something (in this case, reduce their own population growth rates) that we, in the US, refuse to do.
Right now, by 2040 or so, of all the world’s countries – only the US is projected to have a GROWING population.
That’s Death for civilization OR humanity –
Barring big changes in the political, social, and military culture of the US –
Such changes are unlikely –
and should not be assumed –
when the stakes are so high.

Ron Paul is a complete and utter buffoon … and a giant hypocrite since he has lived off the government teat being paid government salaries and accepting government perks and government-paid health care for most of his life, in the Air Force and in Congress.
Ron Paul is the worst kind of hypocrite who doesn’t even see the contradiction that he is not practicing what he preaches.

For what it’s worth, I’ve gotten more use out of my permaculture books than the (admittedly) fairly steep price tags. Remember this is still a niche market, and these guys usually print in small lots to avoid excess production. I know that everyone who publishes with Chelsea Green encourages sharing books, buying one for the library, etc. Still, the book in question is marked $35; and it’s 330 nutrient-dense pages that should save the owner-builder tens of thousands of dollars, if not more. (I got it for $21 from Amazon.com). I’ve certainly saved enough money from using the wisdom in my permaculture books to pay for them all many times over. Besides, at such a price, the number of them on your shelves is sort of a testament to how long you’ve been doing it. I usually pick up a book or two at each gathering, and I’ve got about 3′ worth now, a full shelf. I hope these books fill my grandchildren’s shelves one day.
I’ll fill you in on the farm dilemma in a bit. Need to go finish kids’ baths.

Should anyone want to brainstorm/contribute on/to the Occupy RNC Tampa Bay then please see my Facebook page “Tim Brown” or link over to the ORNC Facebook page.
I want to help with donations, education, and triage for anyone who wants to show up. But I especially think we need to to focus on the so-called “mainstream.” If mothers and fathers, working stiffs, single moms & their kids and the lucky can all learn together about what is at stake–if we can be persuasive and helpful–then we can take Occupy to a place of legitimacy hitherto unknown by the millions of Americans who presently hear us as static.
So join me in my effort to contribute so that I can present the story and the evidence in Hi-Fidelity to those we need to reach.
Let’s all localize, get kindly & friendly, and help those people that may yet understand.

Vlad to Asoka – How is this any different than what you already believed? At least your previous viewpoint was an honest reflection of your real belief, namely no borders. Now you pay lip service.Asoka’s response – Baby steps, Vlad. My advocating for a complete elimination of borders was not getting anywhere.Pope to College of Cardinals – My touting of Jesus as our savior and the one true Son of God has not been been cutting any ice with the masses so I’m taking a new tack.Q – It really is sickening isn’t it Vlad? You’d think I’d get used to this sort of thing by now but I never do.

You’d think I’d get used to this sort of thing by now but I never do.
===================
It pleases me that you are still capable of surprise!
By the way, I attended Catholic mass when it was said in Latin with the priest’s back to the congregants. That wasn’t getting anywhere, so they changed the mass. The Pope changed it. The change was welcome, not sickening, at least not to me.

What happens to the world population is simply a matter of mathematics. First assume that the current population figure of 7 billion is more or less accurate. Then assume that the rate of increase of population remains stable. Now these two assumptions aren’t necessarily true, but just for the sake of argument, let’s assume they are, which, again more or less, is reasonable.
If the world’s population is projected to be 10 billion by the year 2050 (estimates range between 9 billion and 11 billion), that implies an annual growth rate of about 1.5%. Using the “rule of 72″, the world’s population would then double every 47 years (dividing 72 by the rate of increase of 1.5%).
At a doubling cycle of 47 years, 6 doubling cycles would take 6×47 or 282 years. Using the year 2050 as the base year, that means the estimated world’s population of 9 billion at that time, would double 6 times or increase by a factor of 64 in 282 years. In other words, at today’s estimated rate of population increase, the world’s population would be 576 billion people by 2332 A.D.
Now we know that’s impossible because the Earth couldn’t sustain that many people. So sometime in the future we have to inevitably either drastically reduce our current birth rate – which is an action that humans undertake – or we have to drastically reduce the population itself either by our own actions through war or euthanasia, or through nature’s actions, over which we have no control, or some combination of both.
This isn’t a matter for discussion, it’s a mathematical certainty. The numbers might change, but the principal remains the same.

About the farm. This issue has come to a head only recently. For the last 10 months we’ve believed one thing, and the farm owners have (so they say) believed another. We had no desire to come to Tifton. Actually when we heard about the offer to come here we were resistant because of the lack of ownership. But they pitched it well.
“You’ll be partners in the transition of this 300 acre family from, moving from conventional cotton/peanut rotations to organic perrenial production. In exchange we’ll give you a place to live and fix up.”
So we did it. We had every intention of putting this place on the map, creating a regional hub of permacultural excellence in action. I envisioned a thousand visitors a month strolling through our orchards, by the ponds, buying organic fruit, nursery stock, and grass-fed beef.
Until this last meeting. After all the other meetings, which supported our perception of what was happening, this last meeting was about a new lease. A very restrictive new lease, very fearful. It’s like an attorney got ahold of them and shook them, and asked them what kind of dream world were they living in? One that we were enjoying, to be honest. But during this last meeting I finally asked why we were being shut out of farm operations. Why are you renewing the lease for that noxious cotton right outside our organic orchard? We talked about that being our land to work with after this first homesteading year.
Blank stares. No memory of this discussion. I told them that it was confusing to us, that we had been courted to come help in this great transition, and that it felt like we were being shut out. Had we done something wrong?
We didn’t court you. We were offering you a port in the storm. We were told that you were desperate to get out of the ghetto, and thought we could help. Yeah, sure, thanks for wasting the last year of our lives. We can live and garden anywhere, and truth be told, this is one of the last places on Earth we’d have chosen to do it. The gnats are just god-awful. Plus my sister is here, and can’t stand her or her spoiled rotten children. They make my children crazy.
So after 3 failed attempts to do something community-oriented, we’re clamming up. The vision has been compromised. We’re liquidating what assets we have, and buying a small piece of property in a place with no gnats, where it’s 10 degrees cooler and we can live without AC. Summer here without AC was hard. It knocked us down. But we can do it up there. Especially in a cob structure. And the farmers markets are waaay better there than here.
This is our last play. All we have left. We love north Georgia, and are exited about building a cob house, and to be working markets with people we know and love like Mean Dovey Cooledge up in Blue Ridge, and my brother in Atlanta. Maybe we’ll even meet POC one of these days, as he’ll be about 40 miles east of us. Honestly, I can’t wait.

Ron Paul is the worst kind of hypocrite who doesn’t even see the contradiction …
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Holy shit … this takes the cake! Look who finds fault with contradiction. My eyes have rolled so far back in my head I can see behind me.

Holy shit … this takes the cake! Look who finds fault with contradiction.
=================
Once again, I am pleased by your surprise!
You mean to tell me Ron Paul is also Large and contains Multitudes?
I have never placed a value on consistency (“the hobgoblin of small minds” — Emerson).
People like Ron Paul make a religion out of it. He’s been saying the same thing about 1913, gold, the Fed, the Constitution, etc. for decades.

Q said: “Holy shit … ”
—————–
For those new to CFN, Q may be referring to my many posts of several years ago on humanure which is, literally, holy shit.http://humanurehandbook.com/downloads/H2_all.pdf
The Humanure Handbook is out in the 3rd edition now.
Thanks, Q!

A simple mathematical function, as I illustrated above, shows that overpopulation is the biggest issue facing us. It’s all well and good to have social concerns about justice, fair and equal treatment, and the human comedy, but nature doesn’t care about those issues, it operates within the world of physics and biochemistry, and when a limit is reached, it will act brutally and without regard for human suffering.
We really are doomed if we don’t resolve our population situation. The history of Earth has shown us that the ecological balance is very precise and is based on many factors, without too much room for manouvering. So many factors exist that I believe solving all our energy problems will be to no avail for our survival. We can talk all we want about how to live with less in a peak resource world, but ultimately it will be the size of our population that will be the crucial topic.

A small matter of form, not substance.
————–
You been to mass recently, Q. Q, they are messing with the Nicene Creed in the Mass. That is substantial change.
In 2011 here are some of the SUBSTANTIAL CHANGES:
The alterations in language are drastic enough that for longtime Catholics “it will be a big change to have to use a sheet of paper or a worship aid to say prayers,” said DeTurris Poust.
Some of the changes include, instead of responding, “And also with you,” to the priest when he says, “The Lord be with you,” Catholics will now respond with, “And with your Spirit.”
During the penitential act, where Catholics once said, “I confess to almighty God and to you my brothers and sisters, that I have sinned through my own fault,” they will now say, “that I have greatly sinned.”
In the Nicene Creed, where once Catholics said that God is the “Maker…of all that is seen and unseen,” they will now say God makes “all things visible and invisible.”
And in that same prayer, where Jesus was once “Begotten, not made, one in being with the Father,” He is now, “begotten, not made, con-substantial with the Father.”
Where Catholics once said, “Lord I am not worthy to receive you,” they will now say, “Lord I am not worthy that you should enter under my roof.”

Benedict is taking small steps back to the original Mass, the Mass of all Ages, substanially unchanged until the tragic betrayal of Vatican Two when they allowed the Mason, Bugnini, to twist and pervert the Mass.
The Priest didn’t have his back to the People – he was facing the Altar – leading them into the promised land. Facing the People he is merely one of them, part of the infantile circle jerk that is so important to you people.

re: A hard rain falling
Your comment reminded me of another threat.
IF we are very lucky, there is enough time to close and deactivate the nuclear plants in the New Madrid seismic zone before major earthquakes lead to several Japan style meltdowns.
Alternatively they might be upgraded (more like rebuilt) to withstand 8+ magnitude earthquakes.
Unfortunately there is not even serious talk about the existence of the threat, let alone anyone taking action to significantly reduce this probability.
The seismic stress building in this zone is obvious. It might be months, will probably be years, but is unlikely to be a decade before that stress is released. Odds are it will not be released gently.

You’re starting to make some sense, Mr. Bean!
“We really are doomed if we don’t resolve our population situation.”
Again I have to say, yes, each human does exact a certain toll on the planet’s resources, but in a fair analysis, you exact more like 50 tolls on the planet’s resources than someone from a conserver culture (my new term to replace the crass “third world” moniker). Consumer culture (also more fitting than the “first world” moniker)is every bit the problem that population is in the poorer countries.
Perhaps the problem is more like ‘we only have so much energy to divide amongst us, and the more people there are the less we get…to spend on ourselves.’ Where is my space heater anyway? My piggies are chilly. Who cares if that guy gets his bowl of rice today?@! Piggies! Cold! Capish?

Terrible. Human beings really are that weird in my experience. He may really have no memory of your previous agreement – perhaps it has been deleted by him since breaking his word doesn’t fit into his self image as a nice guy. Maybe someone got to him – you’ll probably never know. And that’s part of the pain of human life.
What an awkward situation. Best to make a clean break of it as you are doing. Good luck and give us the blow by blow as you build the house.

Yo WSP, Did your power go down before the storm? The storm was only ten days ago. People can prepare all they want, but when Ma Nature comes knockin’ all bets are off. I lost half of my apple trees and an equal amount of the sugar maples. I guess I can replant and they will be good again by 2100. I can hardly wait.

If you think that’s bad, just wait and see what Momma Nature has in store for us and our population explosion. She bats last. It will be far worse than a little government population control. Thems the breaks, I guess.

I’m really sorry that things on your 300 acres didn’t work out for you. And it wasn’t because your permaculture plans failed, it was because of the actions of others. I’ve dealt with many businessmen and have been involved in many real estate transactions, some of them fairly large, and I can tell you money and other tangible assets bring out the worst in people.
I hope I’m not being too intrusive, but my suggestion is to put everything in writing in the future. When you meet with someone, write a memorandum of understanding. After your discussions, send the other parties a letter stating something like, “This is just a note to clarify what we discussed on such and such a date. It is my understanding that: blah blah blah.”
At least, in the future you can produce the note and state, “Don’t you remember what we talked about last November?” Here’s a copy of what I mailed you.” BTW, send the letter certified, with a return receipt.
Nothing is too trivial to memorialize in writing if it concerns you and your family’s well-being. And if a person’s intentions are honest, they won’t mind getting the memo.
Remember, Edison conducted 10,000 experiments that didn’t work out before he invented the light bulb.

You mean to tell me Ron Paul is also Large and contains Multitudes?
I have never placed a value on consistency (“the hobgoblin of small minds” — Emerson).
================
I had the TV tuned to CNBC today with the sound muted and my attention generally diverted to my laptop monitor. I raised my eyes and saw that Bill Griffith (Sp?) was interviewing Ron Paul. I quickly un-muted and listened to what I believe was roughly the second half of the interview. I found zero fault in anything RP said.
Bill G said “Congressman, I first met you and listened to a speech you delivered 30 years ago when I was new in this business [financial journalism] and it was virtually the same as the speeches you are sill giving … concerning gold, the Fed, big deficits, etc.” and RP said “well, of course, that’s because we still have these same issues.”
Frankly Asoka, I loved it. How revolting it would have been if RP had said “Yeah, I was on that gold kick for a couple of decades and then I had an epiphany that everything I believed was a pile of crap.” One does not drop their convictions because they haven’t made a breakthrough with a large enough number of constituents.
The vitriol I see on this blog (and elsewhere) against Paul from Buck and you tells me he’s making headway and you guys are getting nervous.
About the Emerson quote, I must once again correct you. It was not “consistency” that Emerson found to be “the hobgobblin of small minds” but rather “a foolish consistency.” Ron Paul’s consistency is not foolish.

I accidentally submitted before finishing my thoughts on Ron Paul.
I don’t find it at all contradictory that he is a member of government while espousing a vast change and reduction in the size of government. Where better to effect change than from within.

Hi Wage, We had utility crews from all over in my town. They were from Michigan, SC, and NC. Really nice guys. They drove 15-20 hours to get here and went right to work. 16 hour days. Some of them I could barely understand the dialect. We shared some laughs and coffees. It was really nice to have them in the ‘hood. I know our guys have been south for hurricanes before. What a friggin’ mess! This year alone, tornadoes, hurricanes, and blizzards in October! People still laugh and say there is no climate change! I do not suffer fools lightly.

Thanks, Bill. Of course you bring up some great points. The ideologue in me wanted to have this great social breakthrough, fitting of the times, and understanding with the farm owners, thinking they were down with the same thing, that produced a free-form, handle-it-as-it-comes kind of collective spirit. Didn’t work out that way unfortunately, and now I find myself pretty jaded about such matters. Wish I could just trust people to do what they say they’re going to do, but that doesn’t seem to be the way of it. Probably why we’re going to try to make it work on our own for now, whatever that requires.
Maybe we should call our next farm Heinz 57. Fifty-six variations tried before we found the right one…